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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361807">Cabin Fever</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/calacreda/pseuds/calacreda'>calacreda</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU: No Covid lol, All the V3 gang is in here at some point, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Dubious Anthropology, Everyone is friends with each other its sickening, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Friendship love and interior decorating, Getting Together, Kokichi is annoying, Korekiyo has trauma, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Rantaro and the Boys share a house, Rantaro has wanderlust, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, We are an anti-kiyo's-sister household, tw in the notes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:28:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>47,831</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361807</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/calacreda/pseuds/calacreda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Korekiyo is so different to his other friends. So different to everyone he has ever met. He is deceptively still, like the glassy surface of a lake, but Rantaro knows he is as impatient and restless as Rantaro himself. He’d crack Korekiyo open and peer into the mire, but that would be like, intense...and needy...and not cool."</p><p>Korekiyo is an enigma and Rantaro is itching for his next adventure.</p><p> </p><p>Amaguuji College AU. Slow burn.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amami Rantaro/Shinguji Korekiyo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>154</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I dedicate this fic to the version of me in an alternative reality where I actually do some research. A lot of the ~anthropology~ in this is entirely made up by yours truly. Not ALL of it, just a lot of it, so don’t expect facts because you shall likely find none. Some of the more important cultural stuff is researched, but honestly this is a multi-chapter slow burn fanfiction about two characters in a 3-year-old video game that barely interacted, if at all, so I don’t think the factual accuracy is the problem here.</p><p>I actually have researched mental illness and PTSD a lot in my line of work, and so those bits are pretty faithful, though some dramatic license has been taken. </p><p>Trigger warnings for the whole fic: self-harm, trauma, panic attacks, mentions of rape/paedophilia/incest of the Shinguuji variety, recreational drug/alcohol use, Youtubers, non-Covid mask-wearing, university deadlines, indoor socialising and Kokichi Oma. </p><p>Enjoy kids xxx</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time he refocuses his eyes there are three drops of blood staining the paper.</p><p> </p><p>He brushes them away, swiping at the sheet with the back of his hand. The concentrated crimson spreads to a sunset pink, streaked across his notes. He curses under his breath and sticks his finger in his mouth, tongue probing the hangnail that is to blame. Biting his nails is a habit he cannot seem to shake, and as with anything, he takes it too far sometimes.</p><p> </p><p>Determined to at least finish the chapter, he wraps the bleeding finger in a crumpled tissue he fishes out of the pocket of his pants and props his elbow on the desk, holding his finger above his bowed head as he gets back to reading.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Vitruvius associates the straight lines and right angles of the Doric order to propose a masculine counterbalance to the feminine suggestion of Ionic’s scrolls and grooves. In questioning practicality and expense, his theory on the triad of styles working on a pyramid-based support structure offers--” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Question from Amami! Let’s go over to him now!” A grating voice interrupts his thoughts and the pages of his books are obscured by white and purple as a body is flung dramatically across the surface of his desk.</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro groans and sits upright, lowering his hand and rolling his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m trying to concentrate, Kokichi, this needs to be in by Friday.”</p><p> </p><p>Kokichi is all wriggling limbs and teeth as he manoeuvres onto his side to pin Rantaro with a mischievous grin. </p><p> </p><p>“That’s your question? Seems like that’s actually the <em> answer </em> to my question ‘if you were as boring as Shuichi, what would you say to my suggestion that we go and break into the zoo?’”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro leans back, failing to fight a smirk. “We already tried that. We didn’t get very far.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s because Miu was too loud! She is <em> not </em> invited this time.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, sorry to be all Shuichi about it, but I really do have to finish this.”</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, <em> fine </em>, but what about after? I’m bored and wanna get drunk.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro crosses his arms. Kokichi squirms until he is sitting on the desk with his legs splayed, seemingly unconcerned by the fact they are in a library.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m seeing Kiyo tonight. I’d invite you along but you don’t like him and he finds you too loud.”</p><p> </p><p>“What are you talking about?! I love Kiyo!”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro raises an unconvinced eyebrow. </p><p> </p><p>Kokichi beams. “There is nothing I would like more than to sit in a dark apartment surrounded by musty old books, listening to Kiyo talk creepily about seances.”</p><p> </p><p>“Almost had me in the first part. You should join the drama society.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nihihi! I’m on their black list sadly!”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course you are.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ok, well, If you’re gonna be boring then I’m gonna leave! Bye bye!” Kokichi hops off the table and saunters out of the small room just as the librarian walks in. He salutes at her and she turns, bemused, to glare at Rantaro.</p><p> </p><p>He sighs in defeat, and slams his books shut. </p><p> </p><p>000</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “There are no two ways about it. One more missed grade and your status will be reviewed. And found wanting, I imagine.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “They threaten this every time. They never follow through.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “This is the final warning, Amami. If you want to stay in higher education, you will have to take your studies more seriously. The damage done by your interruptions has already had an irreparable effect on your grades, the best you can hope for is to try and salvage your final exams.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “My ‘interruptions’ are faculty-approved excursions.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “You mean the holidays you take? The faculty cannot legally disapprove anything that is paid for and organised externally. You know that is just a formality.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “It’s helping me. It’s clearing my head. I can’t stay here all of the time, I’ll go insane. My passion comes from travel. I learn invaluable stuff abroad, I’ve proved that!” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “If you do not leave enough time for study, you will be dropped by the department, that’s all I have to say. Perhaps you should consider if this academic path is really the right thing for you.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>000</p><p> </p><p>“And <em> then </em> she said that I needed above a 70 to pass the semester, and that if I fail any of my exams I’m kicked out, basically.” Rantaro shrugs, flipping open the faded dust cover of an old book and searching for any personal messages written on the inside cover.</p><p> </p><p>“Does this concern you?” </p><p> </p><p>Rantaro scoffs, rubbing the back of his head with his other hand. His hair is in a state. He’s been twisting it around his fingers while he reads again.</p><p> </p><p>“They’ve threatened stuff like this before.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, but you have never talked about it at such great length before. I think, perhaps, this instance has you worried.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo flicks his eyes up to Rantaro and then returns to sorting through the pile of books in front of him with careful, practised hands. He is wearing his bandages this evening. He always wears his bandages when handling his monthly delivery of books.</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro smiles in a way he hopes is carefree. “I won’t fail. I never fail. My attendance is poor, that’s all.”</p><p> </p><p>“You are certainly intelligent enough to score above 70, with the right amount of application.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro ambles over and sits down inelegantly on the carpet opposite Korekiyo. </p><p> </p><p>“Yeah it just means that apparently I’ve gotta go away less until this year is over. They don’t like my...'<em>field-based</em><em> approach' </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo laughs lightly behind his mask. It is a breathy, delicate sound. It used to send shivers down Rantaro’s spine. Now it feels him with a slight sense of pride. </p><p> </p><p>“Is that what you call it? As I recall, the last time you left on a ‘field trip’ you were gone for two months and came back with an extra suitcase of ‘findings’ and gastroenteritis.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey! I gave you <em> plenty </em> of my ‘findings’! You didn’t voice any complaints then!”</p><p> </p><p>“I must have been too glad of your return to scold you.” He notes absently, reading the spine of a book written in French and scribbling something down in his notepad.</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro choses to charge past the suggestion that Korekiyo misses him when he leaves and turns the conversation around. </p><p> </p><p>“You go away too. A lot. And <em> that’s </em> even more troubling, since you rarely actually say <em> where </em> you’ve been.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo fixes him with a stare. Golden eyes fizz against his own. It’s teasing.</p><p> </p><p>“Need-to-know.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro raises an eyebrow. “<em> Really </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course. One day perhaps we will travel together, and you will see what it is I do. I assure you, it is quite boring.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then why be so mysterious about it? You’re not running a crime ring or something, are you?”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo chuckles again. “I must keep up appearances.”</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes it is harder to tell with Korekiyo than it is with Kokichi if he is joking or not.</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro lets him have that one. He watches him place the last of the books from one pile into the cardboard box in front of him, and tape it shut. He reaches for the precarious stack next to him and goes to lift them. </p><p> </p><p>“Gimme half.” Rantaro says, not waiting for an answer before taking two thirds of the books off the pile. They move them to Korekiyo’s desk. </p><p> </p><p>“Is that all of them?” Rantaro claps the dust from his hands. Korekiyo stretches his spine.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes. A smaller shipment than last month. I will have more time to look at these before I send them back.”</p><p> </p><p>“Anything good?”</p><p> </p><p>A flash of amusement in gold eyes. “I do not know yet, I haven't read them. Most are in French.”</p><p> </p><p>“Pourquoi?”</p><p> </p><p>“Ils sont livres français.” He says dryly. </p><p> </p><p>“Bien sûr.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo doesn’t look at him as he sorts the stack of books into smaller piles, but his posture relaxes into the slope of light conversation. He has tied his hair back today. Rantaro watches the loose strands slide over his shoulders like ink.</p><p> </p><p>“Voulez-vous manger ici?”</p><p> </p><p>“Enough French. Depends what you’ve got in. I thought the deal was: I get fancy sake if I help you sort through your book delivery?”</p><p> </p><p>“The muscle demands payment, as usual.’ Korekiyo sighs, and moves into the small kitchen that branches off from his living space.</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro spends a fair amount of time at Korekiyo’s apartment. Despite it being small, it is always neat, and is full of intricate, personal touches. Shelves line several walls, groaning under the weight of books. Figurines and artefacts decorate most surfaces, tapestries and weavings are hung on the walls and thrown over the couch, and there is a story and character in every piece of furniture. It has a consistent, pleasantly earthy colour palette that makes it feel both neutral and personal. Rantaro assumes this main space was advertised as a living room, but it <em> feels </em> more like a study.</p><p> </p><p>The kitchen is simple, airy, clean and traditionally Japanese. It is a pleasing contrast to the rustic, academic style of the main area that is more reminiscent of Edwardian England than Japan. Cozy yet cluttered. Rantaro does not know what Korekiyo’s bedroom looks like. </p><p> </p><p>He is peering into the refrigerator when Rantaro enters.</p><p> </p><p>“Hm. It appears I have let my chores get away from me once again. Perhaps I could tempt you with take out?”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro leans against the doorframe. “Perhaps you could.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro is famously phlegmatic, but knows he can be a little cagey about his personal life, and although he has lots of friends, he has no <em> close </em> friends, per se. He sees some of this private personality in Korekiyo. </p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo is an odd guy. He has unusual habits, mannerisms and interests. Everything from his style to his voice to his specific brand of eccentricity is polarising: you either run the other way or find yourself drawn in. Korekiyo, Rantaro knows, can make himself personable, and be polite and friendly in casual interactions but by his very nature, like Rantaro, does not have many that know him thoroughly. </p><p> </p><p>Rantaro reaches into the drawer where he knows Korekiyo keeps the take out menus and chooses a restaurant without asking, and just like that he’s there for dinner.</p><p> </p><p>An hour later they are halfway through their meal. Korekiyo visited Morocco the previous year and came back with a taste for the food, and once he’d found an adequately authentic local he’d roped Rantaro in. Rantaro is happy as long as it's vegan, and he is constantly surprised by how much flavour you can fit in a chickpea. He sits with Korekiyo at his chabudai, cross-legged on cushions, and watches him pour them both a small glass of very expensive-looking sake.</p><p> </p><p>“This comes with a warning. Its region cautions that three and a half glasses before midnight during a new moon allows you to watch the spirits of farmers drift across the rice fields like a never-ending production line.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds perfect.” Says Rantaro, taking a sip. It’s a harsh, acidic taste that wakes him right up. He can feel its purity in the base of his spine. “You always have the best stuff.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s part of my research, Amami.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em> Really </em>.” </p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo gives him an amused, withering look and slips another small piece of flatbread into his mouth through the open zip on his mask. Korekiyo rarely eats in front of people, and if he does, it is quick and inconspicuous. Rantaro remembers the first time he ate with him in his own home, and was surprised initially by the invitation and then even more so by his apparent dedication to wearing a mask at all times. He doesn't seem to take it off even for meals in his own space.</p><p> </p><p>“Anything in your recent delivery on Greek architecture? I have this project coming up.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hmm. Not that I’m aware. However, I have some Athenian temple prints if you need a visual reference?”</p><p> </p><p>“That would be cool. I’m sick of squinting at them on my laptop screen, ya know?”</p><p> </p><p>“You are more than welcome to take a look, in that case.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks.” Rantaro finishes his meal and leans back on his hands. “And thanks for dinner.”</p><p> </p><p>“My pleasure. It was in exchange for your time, and conversation.”</p><p> </p><p>“Which is stimulating in French or not, I’m sure.”</p><p> </p><p>“Precisely.” Korekiyo sips his drink delicately through his mask. </p><p> </p><p>“Must have been pricey, though. I keep telling you to let me pay for stuff, it’s not as if I’m short on cash.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo blinks slowly at him. “It is not the money, but the gesture. Most of our world’s most meaningful customs stem from the very human desire for an unequal exchange, a display of good will, or selflessness and affection that is ultimately self-satisfying. Spending money when one needn’t, or when it would make more sense to allow another party to do so is often the basis for a culture’s gift-giving traditions. I enjoy feeling as if I have treated you, even if it is illogical.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro listens, as usual, with close attention. He turns the idea over in his mind. </p><p> </p><p>“I suppose you’re right. No such thing as a selfless act, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>He assumes Korekiyo smiles at this. “Precisely. An interesting and quite compelling argument. I wonder if there is ever a way to know for certain that that is the universal truth.”</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t imagine there is. No one thinks or feels in the same way as anyone else.”</p><p> </p><p>“Indeed. There would be no way to establish a control for the experiment.”</p><p> </p><p>While Rantaro thinks over this, Korekiyo tucks a lock of loose hair behind his ear. </p><p> </p><p>“Besides, I may not have the Amami fortune but I am hardly impoverished myself.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro knows Korekiyo has a sponsorship for his studies; organisations that give him money for whatever academic supplies he needs in exchange for his findings. He is exceptionally bright and unusually dedicated. He has never struggled for financial support in terms of his education, that is for sure.</p><p> </p><p>What Rantaro is really curious about is the rest of it. Korekiyo has lived in this apartment for as long as Rantaro has known him, and appears to own it, given how many paintings and tapestries he has affixed to the walls, but Rantaro cannot think where the money came from. Unless he moonlights as a hitman or a prostitute or another equally discreet yet lucrative profession, he doesn’t have a steady job. Rantaro imagines that, like himself, Korekiyo’s parents are wealthy, however he cannot know for certain as he never talks about them. He never talks about his family in general. Rantaro isn’t even sure where he comes from. To be good friends for three years and know nothing of Korekiyo’s upbringing makes Rantaro think it is a topic that has been purposefully, diligently avoided, and for that reason, he never asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Well either way, I appreciate your gesture.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo bows his head and drains the last of his sake. Rantaro’s glass has made him feel pleasantly fuzzy. The high quality stuff always hits quicker and better. Korekiyo’s eyes remain sharp and focused.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you wanna come out on the weekend? A few of us are going to this gig, it’s supposed to be underground but half of campus is going and it’ll just be a booze fest. An excuse to let loose though.”</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t know what possessed him. Korekiyo is not one for parties, this he knows. The few student events he <em> has </em> seen him at mostly involved him standing in the corner like a particularly sinister shadow, keenly observing the chaos from his plinth of relative sobriety. Rantaro doesn’t even think he’s seen Korekiyo properly drunk. He wonders briefly what he looks like when he lets loose. </p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo observes him for a moment. His slow, careful scrutiny is mesmerising and makes Rantaro fidget. When Korekiyo lowers his eyelids, his absurdly long eyelashes cast spider-shadows on his pale cheeks. He tilts his head back.</p><p> </p><p>“Where is this event?”</p><p> </p><p>“The basement of <em> Kokadai </em>. Saturday. Starts at 10.”</p><p> </p><p>“And who is ‘a few of us’?”</p><p> </p><p>This is further than Rantaro expected to get. “Uh, Kaito, Ryoma, Shuichi. Maybe Maki. Probably Kokichi. Oh, and me of course.” He adds his winning grin to the last sentence.</p><p> </p><p>“Hmm.” Korekiyo raises a slender finger to his chin in contemplation. “And why, may I ask, have you decided to invite me?”</p><p> </p><p>The questions rarely cease with Korekiyo, but Rantaro knows that he is being curious, not accusatory.</p><p> </p><p>“Um, I don’t know. I thought it might be fun. And we haven’t really done that kind of stuff together before, right? Like the normal college student stuff? I know it isn’t usually your thing but I thought if there were a group of us going you could join and maybe you’d enjoy yourself?”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo examines Rantaro’s reasoning. ‘’Normal college student stuff’. Is that the norm, then? To attend events such as this? Perhaps there are experiences I am missing because of my reserved nature and my studies.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, maybe it could be a cool opportunity to learn more about college life?” Appealing to Korekiyo’s observational curiosity was usually the easiest route in persuading him to do something.</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo shrugs elegantly and stands, taking his and Rantaro’s empty plates through to the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“Very well, perhaps I will join you, if your friends do not mind?”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course they won’t! And they’re kinda your friends too, Kiyo. I know you and Kokichi butt heads sometimes but he’ll be distracted by other things, and everyone else likes you.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em> Well enough </em>.” Korekiyo adds, under his breath so Rantaro barely catches it.</p><p> </p><p>“You can come to mine beforehand for drinks, or you could just meet us there, if you like?</p><p> </p><p>“I shall see how my studies progress.” He says, infuriatingly enigmatic. But Rantaro is a chill guy. He’s easy with anything. Korekiyo is no exception. He <em>isn’t</em>. </p><p> </p><p>“Sure, whatever works. The band’s like indie punk and maybe not your scene, but just wear whatever you want, no one will mind.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo laughs to himself. “A concert in a basement full of college students. How fitting. Perhaps it will be valuable.”</p><p> </p><p>000</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “You’re in my Ancient Civilisations class.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Astutely observed, Amami.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “You know my name?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Yes.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Kinda creepy, dude.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “I think you know mine.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Fair enough. Shinguuji, yeah?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Indeed.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> The subway has stopped between stations. Rantaro throws caution to the wind and strikes up a conversation. Breaking the taboo of talking on trains comes second to the awkwardness of recognizing the person you are sitting next to and staying silent.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Their posture is closed-off, their shoulders tight and their long limbs wrapped around themselves. They seem to be composed mostly of limbs. Rantaro has never seen someone so scarily pretty before. Their eyes are delicately lined, and stare out at him from the only slice of skin on show. They are bandaged up everywhere else in silk and cotton and literal bandages. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “You were Gonta’s partner for last semester, right?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “I was. An experience I rather enjoyed; he is a charming man. Is he a friend of yours?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Rantaro beams, scratching the back of his head. He feels scruffy and underdressed in his loose, comfortable clothes next to this person. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “He is! He’s a great guy, sweetest person I ever met. Knows almost too much about insects.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Shinguuji chuckles. It is an icy sound, and unexpected. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “I found that to be the case as well.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Do you have class now?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Yes. A lecture on the Aztec Empire.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “History?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Anthropology.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Ah, cool. No wonder we overlap. I do Architecture.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Shinguuji’s eyes sweep over Rantaro. He feels goosebumps rise on his forearms. Huh. Weird. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Fascinating. The concepts behind architecture reflect a great deal about culture and history. You must be quite the mathematician.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Rantaro laughs humbly. “Well, numbers aren’t as confusing as people.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Shinguuji nods. It seems Rantaro said the right thing. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Are they as interesting?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “I don’t know. I haven’t met everyone. It’s unlikely though. They don’t change.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “A good point. It seems we have a similar way of thinking.” Their voice warms at the end, just a touch, but Rantaro feels rewarded. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “I guess you’re gonna be late.” Rantaro observes. Lots of other people in the carriage are wearing coverings over their mouths, but Shinguuji’s isn’t a medical mask made of paper. It looks to be either leather or reinforced satin. It covers their neck as well, and has a zip along where their mouth is. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “It seems that way. Perhaps the Aztecs will have to wait.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “It’s not like they’re going anywhere.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Quite. Where are you heading?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Library. I’m supposed to be studying for a test.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Ah, not under immediate time pressure, then.” Shinguuji’s eyes drift over the other people in the carriage, illuminated by unflattering strip lighting. They touch the fingertips of their left hand to their mask, as if tracing their lips. “What is your test on?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Rantaro tells them. They know a surprising amount about architecture. They know a surprising amount about everything. The way they speak is both engaged and distant, intimate like an old friend and polite like a formal acquaintance. It is...unusual. They are very different to other students Rantaro knows. This is perhaps why he remembers them and their surname from class: as much as their body language is unassuming, they stick out silently. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> After half an hour of waiting, of casually exchanging theories on the Mayan calendar, the train starts moving again. When they get off at their stop they are almost an hour behind schedule. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Well, you’ve missed most of the Aztecs.” Rantaro observes, for want of something better to say. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “It appears so. How disappointing. I shall be behind.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Don’t you have a friend or something who could share their notes?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Hm.” Shinguuji looks amused, although Rantaro isn’t sure why. “I will find a way, yes.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Then I don’t suppose you wanna go get a coffee or something? Talking to you might as well count as studying.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> That cold laugh again. Rantaro thinks he might be turned down, but Shinguuji bows their head. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “That would be pleasant, thank you. You must tell me if I bore you, I have a habit of getting lost in my theories.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> At least he is self-aware, Rantaro thinks. “I will tell you if you do, but I don’t think you will.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Very well. Lead the way, Amami.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “You can call me Rantaro if you like. I’m a pretty casual guy.” He says as he leads Shinguuji down a side street towards a cafe he’s been in a couple of times. Shinguuji holds their satchel close to their flank. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “My name is Korekiyo. Kiyo, if you will. It is easier.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Kiyo, huh? Cool name. What pronouns do you use?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “He/him is fine, thank you for asking. I am, I suppose, gender non-conforming, but no pronouns assigned to me bother me particularly. And you?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Same.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> They spend two hours in the cafe and get the train home together. Korekiyo recites his phone number for Rantaro to save and leaves two stops before him. He didn’t see Korekiyo’s phone at all, and briefly wonders if he leaves it at home for class. Rantaro gets off at his stop and walks back to his shared house, typing out a text to his new friend as he unlocks the door. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> They see each other the following week, and the week after, and then several times a week until Korekiyo’s strange lines and shadows become familiar, until he learns the incense-smell of Korekiyo’s apartment, until he begins to understand his dry sense of humour. He is very different to the rest of Rantaro’s friends, like a hidden compartment in a room you’ve been in hundreds of times, but Rantaro can’t summon the feeling of not knowing him. And he doesn’t think he’d want to try. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>000</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t believe you persuaded Kore<em>kink</em>yo out with us, Rantaro! This makes <em> you </em> the most popular person in the group! Try harder, Kaito!” Kokichi is painting his face. He scrawls black teardrops on his pale cheeks as he grins. </p><p> </p><p>“I just offered, and he said he <em> might</em>, not that he <em> would </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Did you invite him here?” Asks Ryoma. He is leaning out of the open window, smoking. Rantaro bites back his caution, knowing even a wasted Ryoma has better coordination and balance than a sober Rantaro. </p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, but he hasn’t said anything, so I think he’ll probably just meet us there, if he comes at all.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro is socially relaxed most of the time, but tonight he is uncharacteristically nervous. He chalks it up to his impending deadline, and the time pressure his inevitable hangover tomorrow will put him under. He also feels stupid for asking Korekiyo, and yet also hopeful that he will come, and yet also worried that he won’t have a good time or won’t like being around Rantaro’s friends. All at once. When they’re drunk. In a dark and crowded bar.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Cool it. You guys are friends, there is nothing to worry about. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“I heard my name.” Kaito’s voice booms through the living room as he comes in with more beer. He’s not dressed yet: still in his sweatpants and favorite NASA shirt, but he has gelled his hair up already and is on his second or third bottle. He chucks one to Maki, curled up, quiet and content on the couch, and winks at her. She scowls, but blushes anyway. </p><p> </p><p>“You heard that Shinguuji is coming?” Ryoma asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, Rantaro said.” Kaito lives in Rantaro’s house too, so he mentioned it at breakfast. Anything Kaito hears, he tells their third housemate, Shuichi. Their fourth, Keebo, doesn’t really drink, and so has elected to stay in his room and study while everyone else gathers downstairs.</p><p> </p><p>“I think it will be nice. I like Kiyo, we study together sometimes.” Says Shuichi. He has stopped halfway through applying his eyeliner to vigorously pat down his bangs. </p><p> </p><p>Rantaro is taking his usual half an hour to put all of his jewellery on, but watches Ryoma as he does so. Curls of smoke slip from his lips. He stares pensively out at the street below. He tugs his beanie further down his forehead against the cold draft. This evening was his idea, but he is usually quite elusive. Rantaro wonders if he is making an effort to be social or if he casually draws people to him when he wants to with very little effort. Everything Ryoma does seems to be minimal effort. And cool. </p><p> </p><p>They drink and talk and lose things. Maki nudges in between Rantaro and Shuichi in front of the mirror to do her makeup. Kokichi keeps hijacking the speaker system to turn off Ryoma’s indie jazz and replace it with the same Vengaboys track over and over again until Kaito snatches his phone away and shuts it in a high cupboard. Keebo comes downstairs to make himself some tea, his eyes heavy and bleary from reading, his hair a delightful birds’ nest, dressed more casually than Rantaro usually sees him in pyjama bottoms and a sweater. He chats for a bit before stumbling back upstairs. </p><p> </p><p>“I’ll call a cab.” Says Ryoma, passively, stubbing his cigarette out and hopping off the window ledge. Rantaro barely hears him over the sound of Kaito and Kokichi shouting and squealing as the latter attempts to use the former as a ladder to retrieve his phone from the high cupboard. Ryoma ducks around the chaos and picks up his own phone. Maki downs her beer. Shuichi is attempting to decide between two hats, pulling and pushing at them and contemplating himself in the mirror.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t wear either. We’re inside, it’ll be crowded and you might lose it.” Rantaro suggests. Shuichi is wearing mostly black. Rantaro worries they might lose <em> him. </em></p><p> </p><p>The bar is hot and dark. The walls vibrate and are sticky to the touch as Rantaro, decidedly more tipsy than an hour ago, follows his friends down the stairs into the packed venue. He gives a brief, hopeless thought to his Ancient Greece assignment before throwing an arm around Shuichi’s neck and following Ryoma to the bar.</p><p> </p><p>The band is passable. The reverb is turned up too high and the bassline overpowers most of the vocals, but it’s the right mood for the night. The bar is full of students with piercings and ripped clothes and brightly-coloured hair. Rantaro sidles up to a person with no eyebrows and a symmetrical face tattoo at the bar and buys another drink. </p><p> </p><p>He talks to Shuichi for a bit, knowing that he’s under stress and needs to vent now he has enough alcohol in his system to let it out. He sees Maki, glaring daggers at a huge man with a huge beard, talking <em>at</em> her rather than to her. Rantaro drags Shuichi over and detangles her from the encounter before heading to the dancefloor. The noise makes Rantaro’s head throb deliciously. Shuichi looks adorably overwhelmed. He sees Kokichi near the front, waving his arms around from his perch on Kaito’s shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>An electric entity works its way into Rantaro’s bloodstream and sizzles in his stomach. His wanderlust, for a moment, takes a backseat to his awareness, his presence, the hard, colourful comfort of friendship from all sides. He always needs to leave, regardless of where he is, and he is always thinking about the next flight, the last train, the price of drifting, but not now, not here. He feels sturdy and steadfast among this group of mostly-strangers in the city he supposes he lives in. His <em> place </em> , at least for tonight, with his <em> people </em>, at least for now. And he doesn’t feel anxious or compressed, he feels released and normal. He dances against Shuichi, feeling the noise and lights in his lungs. He thinks he will stay here, in this dingy bar with this mediocre band with a paper due next week. In this moment he’ll rest and be permanent. </p><p> </p><p>He undoes enough buttons to defeat the purpose of his shirt by the time the first half of the set is finished. His necklaces have all tangled together as he was jumping. His hair is probably a matted mess. Maki’s cheeks are flushed. Kaito buys everyone a beer and laughs awkwardly in defence of his empty wallet.</p><p> </p><p>One moment Rantaro stands alone and the next he doesn’t, like part of the dark wall shimmered and spat out a shadow. He blinks, quite drunk, at the tall, slender thing that is suddenly beside him.</p><p> </p><p>In the new music-less lull he hears it speak: “Ah, I have found you.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo looks beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that it has no emotional impact on Rantaro whatsoever, like glancing at a fashion magazine or a painting you know is a masterpiece. His eyes are darkly-lined and glow in the dim light. His shirt is silk and fitted and forest green. His loose pants actually turn out to be a skirt on closer inspection. He is all long limbs and long hair, standing an inch or two above most people in the bar. Every surface of him looks silky and slippery. He blinks out at the crowd from above his mask. He is not wearing his hand bandages, and has painted his nails. He has tied back the top layer of his hair and the rest of it falls down to the bottom of his ribcage. Rantaro can see the hard, pale line of his collarbone through the neck of his shirt.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh! You’re here! Great!” Rantaro says, like an idiot.</p><p> </p><p>“My apologies for the delay. I had to return a specimen to a professor, and it took longer to catalogue than expected. And then I was behind. And so I thought I would just meet you here.”</p><p> </p><p>Seeing Korekiyo in this new environment is...disconcerting. Rantaro smiles at him, and hopes he doesn’t look too wasted. He feels giddy and exhausted. He wants Korekiyo to enjoy himself.</p><p> </p><p>“Let me buy you a drink.” He says, leaving no room for argument, and heading for the bar. </p><p> </p><p>The music starts up again. Rantaro watches the drummer toss sweat from their curly hair. He moves back to the edge of the dancefloor. Korekiyo stands beside him. Rantaro bought him a vodka soda and he drinks it slowly through a straw inserted through the zip of his mask. It makes Rantaro laugh. He observes the people surging and writhing against each other with a cold, detached interest. Rantaro tries not to look at him too much.</p><p> </p><p>“You <em>came!</em> Hello Kiyo!” Kokichi slaps Korekiyo hard across the upper arm in an absurd pantomime of camaraderie. Korekiyo looks startled, before blinking back into stoicism. </p><p> </p><p>“Hello, Ouma. Yes, I am here.” </p><p> </p><p>“Come and dance with us. Ryoma is out smoking and I think Kaito and Maki have gone to make out somewhere. Or maybe that’s where Shuichi is. I don’t know, come on.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ah, I am not really one for dancing, thank you.” Korekiyo says. Rantaro laughs out loud again at the image.</p><p> </p><p>“I get it, you don’t wanna mess up your hair. Fair enough. C’mon <em>dearest Rantaro</em>.” Kokichi pulls on his arm. Even with his platform sneakers on he is still only up to Rantaro’s shoulder. He doesn’t even reach Korekiyo’s sternum. </p><p> </p><p>Rantaro does want to dance. He has too much energy, and feels if he stops moving for too long he’ll crash. Korekiyo’s eyes narrow at him in what Rantaro understands as a smile. Korekiyo nods towards the dancefloor and crosses his arms.</p><p> </p><p>Things slip away a bit then. Kokichi is like a kid on a sugar high, throwing himself at other people during the music drops, clinging to Rantaro like a gecko, putting his small, sticky hands on his chest and in his hair and cackling like a Disney villain when someone spills their drink over him. Rantaro cannot find it in him to care, and laughs at him, with him, humours his tormenting of other dancers and gives him a piggyback when he won’t stop asking.</p><p> </p><p>By the time the band finishes Kaito, Maki and Ryoma have joined them.</p><p> </p><p>“Your buddy looks like his night’s getting better.” Kaito says, an arm slung around Rantaro’s shoulder, hot and loud and drunk and close. His beer sloshes over the rim of his glass as he gestures to Korekiyo, standing tall in the shadows, engaged in a conversation with a couple. They are leaning against each other like the chaos from the rest of the bar doesn’t reach them. They both watch Korekiyo with heavy, attentive eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Good for him.” Rantaro grins. “I promised it would be worth it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I thought Kiyo was gay.” Says Kokichi. He is tying his hair up into pigtails.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s kind of into everything I think.” Says Rantaro, finishing his drink.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s winding down here, do you wanna come back to my place?” Says Ryoma. He has a loft apartment on the other side of town. Rantaro once spent almost three hours there just going through his vinyl collection.</p><p> </p><p>“I have work to do tomorrow.” Rantaro says, with an amount of vitriol and disgust that surprises himself. </p><p> </p><p>“I’ll come!” Says Kokichi. He rushes and rushes and then crashes. Rantaro likes seeing him crash, it is a hilarious and endearing moment of peace.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re gonna head back to our place.” Says Kaito. He has Shuichi, looking considerably out-of-it, clinging to one arm and Maki on the other, pouting as usual, but there is a flush on her cheeks.</p><p> </p><p>Over in the corner, the couple say something that makes Korekiyo’s eyes sharpen. They lean heavier on each other and ask him a question that he visibly considers. He blinks, he nods, he follows them out of the bar. His eyes meet Rantaro’s, and Rantaro gives him a salute. </p><p> </p><p>“Impressive.” Says Ryoma.</p><p> </p><p>When they burst back into the cold air of the street, it is 3 am. Rantaro watches his breath puff out in front of him and buttons up his shirt. </p><p> </p><p>“On second thoughts Ryoma, I’ll come back with you two.”</p><p> </p><p>000</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro wakes up at 11 am the same morning. He made it back to his house, and his bed, but not quite out of his clothes or makeup. Kokichi is with him, his hair still in pigtails. He has stolen most of the covers in the night and is snoring next to Rantaro, drooling on his pillow. Rantaro sighs and rubs his hands over his face. They come away glittery. His rings knock against his nose.</p><p> </p><p>He drags himself to the shower and forces enough glasses of water and coffee down to wake himself up a bit. He wakes Kokichi up at 12 when he is finally feeling alive enough to start working. </p><p> </p><p>“How did we get back here?”</p><p> </p><p>“Must have taken a cab. Bet that was expensive.”</p><p> </p><p>“I hope you paid. I’m broke.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure I did, you never bring your card out with you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Foolproof method of saving money: don’t have any.” He rubs his head, pushing tangled purple hair out of his tired eyes. “Did we fuck?”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro laughs. “And then put our clothes back on?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know how you do things. I’d never judge.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I was just being a good friend.”</p><p> </p><p>“A good friend would have fucked me. Do you not know that I am in love with you?”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro scoffs as he brings Kokichi a glass of water. “That was unconvincing even by your standards.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not getting worse, you’re just getting better at calling me out.”</p><p> </p><p>“Speaking of calling you out, you gotta go dude, or I’ll never get this paper done.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah yeah, thought as much. Kicked out after being used for your pleasure without so much as a hot drink or kiss goodbye.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro rolls his eyes. His phone lights up with a message from Korekiyo:</p><p> </p><p><em> “My apologies for leaving so abruptly last night. I should have said goodbye, but you looked occupied. Thank you for inviting me, I had a fascinating time </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“I bet you did.” Rantaro mumbles to himself with a smirk.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here's chapter two! I hope you like it. Writing as Amami is weird because you canonically don't have much to go on so it was fun carving out a character for him that I think is fitting. Thank you to everyone who left a like/review! I'll put the next chapter up next week.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What are you reading about at the moment? Outside of your assessments, I mean.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro stirs his matcha soya milkshake with its straw. He thinks he ordered it mostly because it matches his hair and not because he actually <em> likes </em> matcha. He takes a sip anyway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m into art right now. Specifically Italian Surrealism; Giorgio de Chirico mostly. It overlaps with architecture as well so I don’t feel I’m wasting my time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No time enjoyed is time wasted.” Korekiyo is wearing a surgical-style mask made of black satin. He sips his green tea through a straw, which Rantaro thinks might constitute some sort of hate crime.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course not, but I can basically count it as working. His stuff is simple at first glance but it buries itself in your brain. Particularly <em> Apparizione della ciminiera</em>. I’ve been dreaming about it. Do you know it?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo shakes his head. Rantaro shows him a picture on his phone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It is...affecting. I can understand what you mean when you say it gets under your skin.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Weird, warped buildings always hook me. I’ll have to read more until I can un-hook myself.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“If you go to a gallery I insist you take me with you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll register your interest. What are you reading about? I saw that book you were carrying around the other day with a bunch of eyes on the cover?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah.” Korekiyo pauses. He glances out of the window and says “Yokai again.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro laughs around his straw. “<em>Again?"</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A different one this time!” Says Korekiyo, his voice high and teasing. “Thought to be the invention of Toriyama Sekien, a poet and artist from the 18th Century. They’re called Mokumokuren - are you familiar?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, I don’t think so. Tell me about them.” Rantaro tucks one leg under him and leans forward on the edge of the table. Korekiyo’s posture gets better as Rantaro’s gets worse.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Mokumokuren are a staple of the traditional Japanese haunted house. They are bad spirits that linger in unmended holes in paper walls. They are malignant but non-violent entities that manifest through neglect. If you leave a house in ill repair or abandonment, the walls start to watch you day and night; an eerie representation of the guilt of leaving something uncared for when it has cared for you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Wow. That’s super creepy. And it’s like...eyes?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes. The yokai’s physical form is eyes watching you from the holes in the walls.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The house...<em> stares </em> at you? Because it offered you shelter and you neglected it?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Indeed. It’s an interesting concern; a house becoming haunted because it is abandoned and not the other way around. Often there is a separate occurrence to create a haunted house, but in this instance, the house itself turns sour and becomes hostile.” Korekiyo’s expression is distant, his voice shrinking. He is visibly thinking. The sun emerges from behind a cloud and lands on his face. He has a round bruise on his neck, standing out starkly against his pale skin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How was the rest of your Saturday night?” Rantaro asks. Korekiyo blinks himself back to the table, the cafe, the present.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh! Most intriguing. I found myself in an area of town I’ve never been to, and shared a very enjoyable evening with the pair. Or morning, rather.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Going off with a couple of strangers into a part of town you don’t know is dangerous, Kiyo.” Says Rantaro, although he is actually quite impressed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I imagine it is. I was not afraid, however.” Says Korekiyo absently, as if that resolves the issue.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you hook up with couples often?” Rantaro realises they don’t really discuss their respective sex lives. Korekiyo has always seemed almost asexual in his relative solitude, his neatness, his mystery. He’s always so covered up that Rantaro can’t imagine that under his clothes he has skin and not just another layer of cotton.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo sips more of his tea through his straw and rests his chin on his wrist. “Occasionally. It seems pertinent to take a wide sample and not discriminate in potential partners.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“‘Sample’? Sounds like it’s part of your studies.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo chuckles. “In a way it is. I find sex to be one of the most interesting avenues of exploration when it comes to anthropology. Never is passion so raw and animalistic. Never are humans more unhinged from societal norms and driven by a single, tangible purpose. Sex is a universal, eternal experience that is the groundwork for countless social customs and historical events, society itself, even. I would be a fool not to investigate it, and there is only so much you can observe on this subject without getting involved.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So...you don’t get anything...<em> non-academic </em> out of it?” Rantaro wonders why he was talking about <em> paintings </em> when they could instead have been pursuing this much more interesting line of inquiry the whole time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s not strictly speaking true, but I wouldn’t consider pleasure as necessarily separate from academia in this field.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I mean I know I <em> tease </em> you about getting hot and bothered over artefacts but I didn’t know you were serious.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo laughs again, his eyes screwing shut. “It is a rather intimate tangle of personal desire and anthropological interest. If anything the latter means I am more open-minded and eager when it comes to the former.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you have a gender preference?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“None at all. It depends entirely on the individual.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You date?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I haven’t, no.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This is a lot of personal questions all of a sudden, Amami. Was my talk of yokai boring you?” He says lightly. He slips his bandaged fingers through his long hair. The cafe is quieter than it was when they came in.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I just figured we’ve been friends for years and haven’t actually talked about this.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We touched on it. Briefly. When you and Yonaga broke up.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, but everyone knows <em> I’m </em> a queer slut. I didn’t know you were one too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo chuckles and stirs his tea absently. “We have lots in common, it appears. More than we considered.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro pulls his other leg up so he’s sitting at the table cross-legged. It’s probably bad manners considering they are in public, but it mitigates his fidgeting. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So do you keep notes or something?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes. I take out my notebook in front of all of my lovers and ask them to describe in clinical detail the intercourse we have just engaged in.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“...Really?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, Amami.” Says Korekiyo, rolling his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But you do <em> learn </em> from it?” Rantaro grins at him, biting his lip to stop it splitting his face in two.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course. Reactions, interactions, specific anomalies, I tend to write out my thoughts and feelings to better understand the experience. Sometimes I go into the encounter with an agenda. In these instances, I communicate with the other party that I would like to try something different, or they say so to me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Wow you are so romantic.” Says Rantaro sarcastically.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I respect the intertwining of sex and romance in concept, however for me I find them remarkably easy to separate.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know why that doesn’t surprise me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo suddenly looks affectionate. It’s rather disarming.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m flattered by your interest.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro smirks. “Who says I’m interested?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Curious, then.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Mn. <em> Curious</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My <em> nighttime activities </em> are hardly worthy of a discussion.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Selling yourself short, are you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You are merely trying to provoke a reaction. To <em> embarrass </em>me. I know your tricks, Amami.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know you well enough to know that you of all people would not get coy talking about sex, <em> Shinguuji.” </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So you are not teasing and you are not interested? Why continue the discussion?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you into any weird stuff?” Rantaro says bluntly. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo at least looks a little taken aback by that. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes. In my experiences I have experimented with a number of unorthodox sexual practises and found many of them pleasurable.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro sighs heavily resting his head on crossed arms. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You even made that sound un-sexy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It is a gift.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I always suspected you were a sexual deviant.” Rantaro finishes his milkshake loudly. A look washes over Korekiyo’s face that begins with distant contemplation, moves to a flash of horror and then settles into something dull and weary. Pained almost. All quickly. All silently. All within a few seconds. Rantaro catches them all, as he has learnt to do with only Korekiyo’s eyes to go on. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He senses he has crossed a line that appeared all of a sudden out of nowhere. He decides to change the subject without claiming Korekiyo’s discomfort as a victory. He is a nuisance but he isn’t an <em> asshole.  </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Anyway now that I’m essentially grounded, I’ll have to make my own fun.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo blinks back into the conversation. “You are being rather dramatic, are you not? You only have to make it to the end of the semester and then you may sail off in whatever direction you desire.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, talk about first world problems, I guess. I just have to keep myself busy so I don’t feel so trapped.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I see. Well, there are plenty of books to read. And plenty of couples to seduce.” Rantaro was grateful for Korekiyo’s even stare. Now he knew the pit was there, he was going to do his best to steer them around it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I guess <em> you</em>,” Rantaro pointed at Korekiyo semi-aggressively with his straw, “Will just have to keep me entertained.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo bats the straw away from his face lazily. “It would be my pleasure.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro’s world narrows to a few streets for the first time in ten years. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The tugging in his gut is nothing new, but it becomes ever more difficult to ignore when he knows it will not be satisfied. The blank corners of the world fill in, and the shallow knowledge, the repetitive experience, is depressing. He feels the tethers of himself wind into the ground like roots, like veins, but instead of grounding and stable it feels increasingly like he is lashed there. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He sleeps worse, talks less, and when he does he rambles, trails off, twitches and sighs until he forces his head down again, back to work, back to books where words have edges but no limits. His first essay comes back with an A+ scrawled on it in affirming, horrid red. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>His head is a hornets' nest. He sits and listens to Kaito and Shuichi “train”, to Kaito and Maki play video games, to Keebo and Kokichi bicker. The house is noisy. He has always loved the racket but now he cannot concentrate and retreats to the library to switch everything off except the bit of his brain that builds things. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>One day he dreams about watching a boat on water above him, trapped below, but when he stretches to break the surface, it is hard like glass, like he’s inside an exhibit case in a museum. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He sees Korekiyo more regularly than he ever has, for concentrated periods of time, and then the other man retreats silently back into his secrecy and solitude. Rantaro never stays long, never stays over, and Korekiyo always has something else to do. The closer Rantaro gets, the more obvious the gaps in his knowledge of Korekiyo seem. Every time there is something occupying Korekiyo, something blurring the edges of his vision that Rantaro cannot pinpoint and doesn’t know <em>how</em> he knows is there. Korekiyo gives Rantaro his full attention, but it is as if Rantaro’s full attention doesn’t quite reach him.  Sometimes Korekiyo’s gaze burns him, and he feels dissected, autopsied, and people <em> don’t look at him like that</em>, but despite the vulnerability, he sits in the scrutiny because he knows that Korekiyo has no ill-intentions towards Rantaro’s depths; just curiosity. Sometimes Korekiyo seems splintered, cracked, pulled so tight you can see through him, and Rantaro asks less, presses less, and leaves earlier.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It doesn’t help that he has this new erotic framing for his friend, his unusual yet undeniable aesthetic appeal now gilded with a practical application. It’s not that Rantaro never thought about Korekiyo in that way; Rantaro has thought about <em> all </em> of his friends that way, it is a trait he cannot help and is so detached from by now that it doesn’t even feel sexual. It’s more that, since his usual avenues of exploration are now closed, he finds his mind drifting down others less literal and more theoretical. When they walk on to campus he finds himself following Korekiyo’s passive gaze, trailing the thread of it to every passerby to see if there is a spark of something red in the gold. When he is in his apartment he thinks about others: dark, enigmatic, fluid forms, sitting on Korekiyo’s couch, drinking his sake, tracing his profile with their numerous eyes, following him into his bedroom that Rantaro cannot construct in his imagination. He thinks about Korekiyo unwinding his hand bindings, slowly, perhaps as a form of exhibitionism, to lay cold, slender fingertips on skin and hair. He thinks about the sizzling, rigorous, impassioned analysis in Korekiyo’s stare, and how much more terrifying, how gut-churning it would feel to have the full force of it trained on a person rather than an artefact. He thinks about Korekiyo forcing physical rapture through the labyrinth of his mind, out between his covered lips, through his steady hand, onto paper, unwinding it as he goes. Rantaro doesn’t feel...<em>aroused </em> by these daydreams. Just achingly, frustratingly curious. If he’s an adventurer, finding a black hole in his front yard is just asking for trouble.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He should get laid to stop being so concerned about his friend getting laid. The library is cold and his housemates are loud. Korekiyo makes tea just how he likes it. They trade books back and forth despite Rantaro having very little free time, despite barely needing to read them after talking to each other, despite his blurry eyes and tired brain.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You seem lacklustre today. Is something the matter?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nah, I just...I’m tired, that’s all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I won’t be offended if you wish to retire for the night.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No! No, I don’t wanna do that. I’m comfortable here. My house is kinda chaotic at the minute. We could maybe just...I don’t know, watch a movie?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s thin brow furrows, then smooths. “As you wish.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So Rantaro picks a movie and they sit side-by-side on Korekiyo’s couch, watching his tiny TV. They’ve never done this before, and Rantaro glances occasionally to watch Korekiyo observing information in this new medium. At one point he meets his eyes, and realises Korekiyo was doing the same to him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s posture doesn’t slacken, his eyes don’t droop. He keeps his face half covered and his eyes alert as Rantaro yields increasingly to the pull of the couch cushions, slouching against the armrest. Everything Rantaro points out, Korekiyo has something to add. It’s a perfect example of how, more and more, Rantaro is beginning to notice how unusual their closeness is; how intimate their friendship and yet always held faithfully at arm’s length. Korekiyo is pressing against his senses but never clipping through his skin. Rantaro’s inquisitive nature wants to bury deeper, probe harder, but does not want to upset the delicate balance, to cause unnecessary harm, and if he admits it to himself, he is a little frightened of what he will find; what bubbles under the surface that gives Korekiyo his intriguing and sometimes sinister air of <em> the other</em>. He idly fantasises about scooting up the couch and pressing his arm against Korekiyo’s uniform, about bumping their knuckles together, about weaving long hair through his fingers, about murmuring his thoughts thoughtlessly into his shoulder.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It makes him want to run away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When the film ends, Rantaro blinks himself back into the dimly-lit room and Korekiyo looks to be smiling softly at him. It’s difficult to tell, as always.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I hope you get some rest.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro thinks about his best friends in his house, how they will bury him in affirmation and physical affection, and distract him with their noise and their eccentricities and their brightness. He has all the support he needs at home. If he is feeling worn down and mopey, he knows he need only ask and they will bolster him with attention and contact until he smiles.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But he doesn’t want to leave Korekiyo’s apartment. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>But he can’t stay. He <em> won’t </em> stay. Maybe he <em> doesn’t </em> want to. He is so different to his other friends. So different to everyone he has ever met. Korekiyo is deceptively still, like the glassy surface of a lake, but Rantaro <em> knows </em> he is as impatient and restless as Rantaro himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro’s precarious dance of phlegmatic and curious is more difficult than ever to navigate. He’d crack Korekiyo open and peer into the mire, but that would be like, intense and needy and not cool. So he puts his coat and sneakers on and leaves. Korekiyo gives him a small wave and a smaller, less visible smile from the doorway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro cannot leave but Korekiyo can. He goes to China. He sends Rantaro lots of pictures of the village he is staying in. Rantaro is green-er with envy and lets Korekiyo know as much. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lacking his new favourite distraction, he spends more time with his other friends. Even Kokichi’s teasing is preferable to boredom. He even lets him talk him into appearing in one of his YouTube videos. He mutes his social media for a week afterwards. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He goes swimming with Kaito and feels gratified at the unusual exercise. He and Shuichi start a five-season TV show and binge the first two over a weekend. He reads and writes and studies and they all get blackout drunk in a club on Friday with Miu. He even goes <em> home </em>with someone afterwards. It’s a normal student life, something resembling what he would expect for himself. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo goes quiet for two weeks. Poor signal, probably. Or just busy. It isn’t like they text that much anyway. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro dreams about eyes, and trawls through the internet for more information on mokumokuren. The drawings stare at him with inky awareness, framed above wooden slats that could be the edge of a mask. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> “How can you possibly think that all of humanity is beautiful? What about...I don’t know, genocide? Fascism? Child abuse?” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> “I do not mean ‘beautiful’ in the intimate, but in the abstract. It is a concept entwined with fascination, with spectacle, with depth and passion. I do not see these things as correct, acceptable, admirable or even ‘good’, I simply mean there is a beauty to the microcosm; like putting a virus under a microscope and seeing a carnival. ‘Beauty’ to me is not merely the pleasing aspects of a close-up, but the intricacy and sublimity of the bigger picture.” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> “I don’t get it. You talk about the beauty of things that no one could consider beautiful. Is that really the right word? Perhaps you should make up a better one.” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> “Perhaps. That is the word that comes to mind, with all of the social and cultural baggage that I associate with it as a result of my upbringing. Acute pain, desolation, raw and unfettered emotions can all be beautiful in their abstract essence. Even suffering can be sublime.” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> “I disagree. I don’t think suffering is beautiful.” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> “Its intricacy unlocks experiences altogether new. There is something radiant, awesome and terrifying in what can so thoroughly and mercilessly tear you apart.” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He gets a text from Korekiyo when he lands. It’s late: Rantaro is dodging his bed again and sits on a park bench nearby, looking out at the river, wrapped up warm in a huge silver puffer jacket that he’s pretty sure is Kaito’s. He is drinking wine from the bottle. He wonders if he looks homeless. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The text reads: <em>"I</em><em> have landed. Fearful of your threats, I bear gifts. When would you like to receive it?"</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro replies: <em>"N</em><em>ow"</em> and shares his location, half-expecting Korekiyo to come out of intrigue even though he must be tired and travel-worn.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo <em> does </em> come. Rantaro can hardly believe it. It is an hour and a half after he texted and Korekiyo finds him on the bench and sits down on the other end.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Should I be worried, Rantaro? This seems to be an unhealthy habit to develop.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not a habit, I’m just a little...flighty today. And everyone else has class tomorrow.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo looks...infuriatingly composed. His hair is tied back, he has a less intricate mask on than his usual full coverage affair, and his clothes are looser and more comfortable-looking, but otherwise you would hardly know he has just stepped off an international flight. His eyes almost glow in the dim illumination of the street lamp. He is wearing black gloves and a long scarf.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro holds out the bottle to him. Korekiyo surprises him for the second time that night and accepts. He pulls a straw from his backpack and slips it under the mask so he can drink. He grimaces.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, it’s gas station stuff, basically. It’s what we had in, and I thought buying a bottle <em> specifically </em> to drink alone on a bench was a bit far.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Your wanderlust truly is chronic.” Says Korekiyo, his voice a little rough from the unpalatable alcohol, handing the bottle back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Afraid so.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is it terminal?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo is asking if he should be worried. In his own way, he is reaching out to his friend. Rantaro’s chest warms as he scoffs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course not. Perhaps it’ll kill me one day, but I’m just being melodramatic.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I will refrain from talking about my trip in order to minimise symptoms.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, don’t do that.” Rantaro swivels round to rest his back against the cold armrest of the bench to get a better look at Korekiyo, tucking his knees up to his chin. “Tell me about it. I want to hear.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo turns to face him more. His eyes look softer round the edges with no makeup on. He unzips his backpack, pulls out a cloth bag and hands it to Rantaro.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The locals gave me this. They’re good luck charms thought to be activated by the action of gift-giving. This is a gift twice-over, so it ought to be extra potent.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s a little doll, about the size of Rantaro’s thumb. It is made of wood, looks hand-painted, and is holding some sort of string instrument. It feels heavier than it should be. Rantaro smiles.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Woah, thank you! I was joking about getting me a present. This is so thoughtful.” Rantaro thinks Korekiyo bringing him a good luck charm, gifting him an artefact, thinking of him on his expedition, is worth the weeks of missing him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Tell me more about it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro buys a board game that Korekiyo said they should learn how to play together and decides to drop in on his way home straight after buying it. When Korekiyo answers the door he looks paler than usual. In fact, he looks worse for wear in general; trembling, with bags under his eyes, leaning from behind the door like he’s trying to obscure his body. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is this a bad time?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah - uh, yes, I’m afraid I am rather unwell.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah shit. Do you want me to bring you something? Food or medicine or…?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, no do not worry, it is nothing serious, and I have everything I need in here I just -” He speaks through his thickest mask like he’s forcing the words out. <em>Perhaps he has a bad throat?</em> “- I just need to rest.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro suspects there is something Korekiyo isn’t telling him. Or perhaps he is just like this when he’s ill. Korekiyo is clean and meticulous: Rantaro has never seen him sick before.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ok, well just text me if you need anything and I’ll bring it right over. Are you sure it’s not serious?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Y-yes, I am certain. A touch of flu, that is all. Thank you for your concern I will-” He shivers, and closes the door further so he peers out through a one-inch crack. “ - I do not wish to infect you…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, ok, if you’re sure you’re alright. I’ll leave you to rest.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He leaves Korekiyo and goes straight to the library. He tries to study, but he’s concerned. He texts him the following morning and gets no response. He waits the whole day. Korekiyo is curt, polite and unsentimental in his messages, but he <em> always </em> replies. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The following afternoon, Rantaro can’t help but turn up to Korekiyo’s apartment uninvited again. He trusts Korekiyo’s ability to take care of himself, of course, but his odd behavior has been bothering Rantaro like a mosquito, and he knows he won’t be satisfied until he is sure he is alright.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo, it’s me again. Can I come in? I brought some of that tea you like.” Rantaro buzzes the intercom and shouts into the speaker. It’s bitterly cold out, no wonder he got sick. He stands in the wind, twisting his rings around his fingers nervously. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“....Amami?” The voice on the other end sounds unfamiliar, but there is enough silvery airiness there to match Korekiyo’s. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah. Look, I know you wanna be left alone, but I’ve been really worried so just let me in so I can reassure myself you’re ok. And I really did bring you tea. Bought it especially from the shop we always go to.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After an excruciatingly long time which was probably actually only a few seconds, the buzzer sounds and the door clicks open. Rantaro usually takes the stairs two at a time but today he walks slowly, half from creeping worry and half in order to give Korekiyo time to get himself in order. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>When the apartment door eventually opens, Rantaro’s stomach drops. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo is in a state. His usually pristine hair is unwashed and uncombed. His complexion is pallid, waxen, almost translucent. His eyes are drooping, dull and exhausted. His shoulders slump and his frame trembles. His mask is upside-down, like it has been hastily replaced. He is in the middle of winding a bandage up his arm, all the way to his bicep, and he has rolled up the sleeve of his button-up to do so. The skin there is red and irritated. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Jesus, Kiyo - “</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You should not have come.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I was worried. Shit, you look like hell.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I appreciate your concern, h-however -“</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro doesn’t let him finish. He strides forward into the apartment and drops his bag in the usual place, shutting the door and rounding on Korekiyo. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’s happened? Why haven’t you answered my messages?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo says nothing, just winds the bandage further up his arm. The apartment is messier than Rantaro has ever seen it. There are several pieces of paper with charcoal words scrawled over them under the coffee table. There are the shards of a broken glass collected into a pile on the sideboard and left there. It is so bright: the main light is on. Korekiyo usually bypasses it in favour of lamp light. Something is very, <em> very </em> wrong. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo, I’m not annoyed, I’m just concerned. Are you sick? Are you having a breakdown? Do you need help?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s eyes are huge and haunted. He wraps his arms around himself and trembles. He isn’t looking at Rantaro, seemingly distracted by something an inch or two to the right of his head. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo. Are you listening?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Still nothing. The flutter of apprehension in Rantaro’s stomach has become a twisting, churning storm. He reaches out to touch Korekiyo’s arm. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo snaps upright, eyes slits of lava, his usually placid brow creased in fury. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“GET AWAY FROM HIM! YOU DON’T KNOW HIM! YOU DON’T KNOW <em> ANYTHING!"</em> Korekiyo screams. Rantaro has never heard him raise his voice. His stomach bottoms out and the hair on his arms stands on end. After the outburst, Korekiyo physically recoils, clutching himself even tighter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ok, ok, I won’t touch you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He told you to <em> leave us alone </em> . We don’t need you. We don’t <em> want </em> you.” Korekiyo’s voice is all shiny, cold, sharp edges, like dropping a tray of cutlery down a flight of stone stairs. It’s like it belongs to somebody else. Rantaro holds his hands up, making a show of staying out of his personal space.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You…” ‘<em>We’?! Who is ‘we’?! </em> “...clearly do need someone. This isn’t like you, Kiyo. This is not like you at all. And I’m not leaving until I am sure you’re ok.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s eyes are like a snake’s. He shrinks back into the room, putting more distance between them, muttering unintelligibly to himself, protected from Rantaro and the rest of the world by the bandages and the clothes and the hair and the mask. Rantaro has no idea what to do. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Can you tell me what is wrong?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo looks too terrified to speak. Sweat beads on his brow, he looks both frightened and furious at the same time. Rantaro can admit to himself that he has lately been craving a certain level of intimacy with Korekiyo; daydreaming about getting closer, prising him open, touching his corners, not in spite of Korekiyo’s composure and secrecy, but <em> because </em> of it. Not like this, though. This is too much all at once. This is so out of character that Rantaro half thinks he is hallucinating.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro sighs. He keeps his posture open, keeps his movements slow and talks slowly and quietly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I am going to start cleaning up in here. Perhaps you should go and lie down.” He is a little scared of Korekiyo. It takes him a moment to realise that it <em> is </em> in fact fear that he tastes, potent and sour, on the back of his tongue. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo backs himself into the corner of the room, expression unreadable. Rantaro starts with the books and papers on the floor, stacking them neatly on the desk, and then moves to the broken glass. When he has scooped it up he takes it to the trash, and when he puts it in, he sees bloody tissues at the bottom of the can. He swallows hard and files the information away for later. He tidies away everything on the drying rack. He turns the bathroom light off and hangs the towel back up on the rail. He turns the light in the main room off, too, and switches on the lamps instead. Now the apartment feels more familiar, All the time, he tells Korekiyo what he is doing, and what he will do next. He’s been around enough to understand how important it is to let mentally vulnerable people know exactly what he is doing and why.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he’s cleaned up a bit, Korekiyo’s breathing has evened out, but if it is possible his face is even paler. He has collapsed on the floor, his back against the wall. Rantaro thinks about the tissues in the trash can.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo, are you hurt?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo doesn’t even blink, slumped in the corner like a marionette with its strings cut.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m concerned, so I’m gonna take a look at you, is that alright? I know you’d rather I didn’t call an ambulance.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He approaches slowly and drops to his knees. Korekiyo is shivering. His eyes, usually like rich liquid gold, are shallow and scared. Rantaro takes his hand, surprised that Korekiyo lets him, and begins to unwind his bandage, starting at his fingertips. It’s like Korekiyo isn’t aware of his presence, shaking and staring into the middle distance. There are a <em> lot </em> of scars on Korekiyo’s forearms, but they are faded and silver, like the scars on Maki’s or Shuichi’s. What worries him is the burn marks. HIs skin is puckered in places, healed over like liquid latex; unmistakably caused by heat damage. Some of those seem more new.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he gets to Korekiyo’s upper arm, Korekiyo flinches, and so he withdraws for a moment. But it wasn’t through fear, it was through pain. The bandages are thicker here, so the blood hasn’t quite visibly soaked through yet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are lacerations on his bicep. It looks like writing, but it’s illegible. Done with a small blade. Bleeding steadily. When Rantaro recoils in mild horror, unable to stop himself, Korekiyo punches him in the chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s a weak blow, but unexpected, so he reels from it anyway. Korekiyo shoves his shoulder until he unbalances Rantaro. His blood smears onto Rantaro’s shirt. Swept up in the panic, he hits and hits Rantaro. Rantaro takes it, trying to steady him so he doesn’t hurt himself more. Tears stream down his cheeks and over his mask. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He runs out of energy quickly, and starts to sob. Rantaro moves without thinking, shifting round to his uninjured side and wrapping his arms around him. He holds him tightly, trying to slow down his own racing heart, swallowing thickly around the lump in his throat, listening to Korekiyo weep tiredly into his shoulder as he slumps into Rantaro.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They sit like that for an hour. Rantaro’s joints seize up but he doesn’t move a muscle, cradling his friend against him like he has the slightest idea what is going on. His gut is twisted like origami with anxiety, his head an impenetrable fuzz of confusion and noise, and all he can think to do is to wait it out, stopping Korekiyo from hurting himself, calming him down before he can figure out what is wrong. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo feels...small in his arms. They don’t really <em> hug</em>, he can’t remember ever touching him this much, and for all of Korekiyo’s height and expressiveness, he folds himself into something tiny and brittle now. His usual elegance becomes fragility; his thin arms wound round his legs and his hipbone digging into Rantaro’s side. Rantaro judges from his limpness that he is now either asleep or too exhausted to move. He lifts his hand from Korekiyo’s shoulder and threads his fingers into his hair, lightly touching his scalp, rubbing his temple a little. Korekiyo slumps further into him: boneless and pliant.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Come on, you need to rest.” He murmurs. His voice is soft and liquid. Korekiyo doesn’t move, so Rantaro hoists him unsteadily to his feet and manages to half-carry him over to the couch. He briefly thinks about taking him into his bedroom, but he thinks he has crossed enough personal boundaries for one day. He lies Korekiyo along the length of the couch on his back, his long limbs spilling off the edges. Korekiyo lets him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His face is blank now; slack with tiredness. Rantaro wonders when he last slept. It is almost worse than when he looked terrified.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I need to clean this properly, Kiyo.” Rantaro says, and reluctantly leaves him to get the first aid kit from the kitchen. He knows where Korekiyo keeps it, because he has been in this kitchen a lot. He knows where Korekiyo keeps it, because he is his best friend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He has to take Korekiyo’s shirt off to get at the whole injury. He watches his own fingers tremble as he unbuttons it. Korekiyo stares at the ceiling, eyelids drooping, still wet and sad. He has more scars across his chest, but they look older and more sparse than on his arms. Rantaro pulls the shirt off his shoulders and slips the sleeve down. He is so pale it is like he has no blood in him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>That isn’t the case, however. Rantaro saturates a whole wad of cotton wool with his blood before sterilising the cut and strapping a bandage over it. Even clean, it is still illegible. Rantaro doesn’t want to know what it says anyway. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He doesn’t want to jostle him in order to rid him of his shirt entirely, so Rantaro rummages around in his bag and pulls out his huge woollen sweater. It’s Rantaro’s favourite: turquoise and green and it smothers him when he wears it. It makes him feel like he doesn’t have a body, just a heart and a brain. It easily covers Korekiyo’s narrow torso. He tucks the edges round him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He wants to take off his mask to help him breathe, but he dare not. <em> There’s so much I don’t know about him, even after all this time. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s bedroom door hovers in the corners of his vision, like a neglected paper wall full of accusatory eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo seems to be asleep, so Rantaro cleans up and makes himself some tea. He texts Kaito to tell him not to expect him home, and when Kaito asks what he’s doing, he’s evasive. It’s like he’s acting on autopilot. He has no complex agenda, just a single drive that tells him to stay with Korekiyo.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So he piles himself into the armchair, with one of Korekiyo’s books to distract him, and continues his vigil into the evening, and then the night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here's chapter 3! Thank you for the support xx</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rantaro stirs, shoulders stiff, with a crick in his neck. Sunlight pours in through curtains he forgot to shut. He smells lemongrass. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He stretches himself out and feels his elbows pop. The couch is empty. He thinks he can hear Korekiyo in the kitchen, but his bladder is complaining so he slips soundlessly to the bathroom. Once he’s back, Korekiyo is standing in the doorway to the kitchen. His hair is brushed and he looks more awake, but he is still pale and he is wearing Rantaro’s sweater. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey.” Rantaro says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I...made you tea.” Says Korekiyo. His voice is hoarse and ashamed, scratchy like sandpaper. Overused. Rantaro nods.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Uh, thanks.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He sits stiffly on the chair he slept in and takes the offered cup. The drink is bland and hot; he isn’t a connoisseur of tea like Korekiyo is. Come to think of it, outside of this apartment, the only tea he really drinks is green tea .</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s hands shake a little as he sips his own drink under the lip of his mask. His posture is tight and his eyes distant. Rantaro watches as he steels himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you, Rantaro. I realise yesterday must have been...worrying for you. You had no warning, no information and you still made sure I was alright. I am humbled by your attention, and incredibly grateful for your help. Please, accept my apologies. I am sorry if I hurt you. I am sorry if I scared you. Such a situation will never arise again.” He says. His voice is back to its usual cold smoothness, but there is an edge of panic to it that Rantaro cannot miss after the previous day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What do you mean it won’t happen again? How do you know that? What <em> did </em> happen, Kiyo?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo stares ahead, like he cannot force himself to look at Rantaro. It reminds Rantaro of the day before and the fear catches fire again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You were in a bad way, and I was worried. I was <em> so </em> worried, Kiyo. And I’d do it again, of course I would, so you don’t need to thank me, but surely you at least owe me an explanation?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo puts down his cup gently and sighs. Rantaro feels a sudden pressure at the back of his chest, like an invisible thread strung between Korekiyo and himself was tugged sharply. It’s like he is preparing for a blow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Korekiyo speaks, it is level and neutral like he is reading from a transcript.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have severe trauma from childhood that has manifested as neurological and psychological illness. It is currently lacking a simple diagnosis, but it bears symptoms of schizophrenia and BPD. Whether or not I <em> have </em> either illness is up for debate. I occasionally slip into an episode, such as the one you witnessed yesterday. I normally have preventative measures, however that was a particularly violent incident. I become ‘possessed’ by another, lose all sense of where I am and what I am doing and act erratically and unreasonably. I often break things, I sometimes hurt myself, and I usually come round incredibly disorientated and tired. I have been in therapy for four years in order to treat it. I have coping mechanisms in place that mitigate symptoms, however it is unlikely I will ever be truly free of it. It is usually manageable. Episodes like yesterday’s come every six months or so, and I usually burn myself out before doing any serious damage. I imagine it was rather terrifying for you. I am sorry you had to bear witness.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His words come with regular pauses and almost clinical detachment. Rantaro closes his mouth after he realises it was hanging open a fraction.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Shit dude.” He says, poetically. He scrambles to think of something to add that doesn’t make him sound like an idiot who’s miles out of his depth. “I...had no idea. I’m so sorry.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo looks at him finally. “You reacted admirably. I dare say I would be in dire straits had you not taken the initiative you did. Thank you for looking after me. And for cleaning up.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro nods, mind elsewhere. “You...you could have told me. It’s not like you <em> had </em> to or anything, your business is your business, but...it wouldn’t have changed how I thought of you. If anything it might have helped me avoid anything that triggered you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo nods. “I...have told no one. It is a facet of my being that is inherently private. I do not know how to even <em> begin </em> to explain. It makes me supremely uncomfortable to talk about it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then, we don’t have to -”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, you are right. You deserve an explanation. I trust you, Rantaro. It is not that I ever haven’t, it is more...I do not want to have to go through the discomfort of sharing this with anyone, even you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do...do your parents know?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Both of my parents are dead.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo has gone white again. “Ah, I’m <em> so </em>sorry -”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“There is no need. I am not sorry. They were like strangers to me, anyhow.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro pictures Korekiyo, small and scared, long hair reaching his ankles, wrapped in enough bandages to obscure his whole body, with wide gold eyes and the curiosity of a child, alone in the dark, teaching himself the shape of the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And the rest of your family -”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can’t.” He snaps. “I’m sorry. Another time. Please, I - give me <em> time </em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course, of course take all the time you need. I just wanna help, Kiyo. I just wanna know you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo frowns at Rantaro like the words confuse him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> Four years of therapy - whatever caused this must have happened when he was just a kid. </em>Rantaro feels sick.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you...are you gonna be ok?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo sags back against the couch, abandoning his usual pencil-posture. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes. It has passed. I can’t even remember what, if anything, triggered it. I will need a bath. And to write some things down.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, good idea.” Rantaro says. After a few moments of silence he realises Korekiyo is watching him, almost expectantly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh no, I’m not leaving. Go take a bath, I’ll wait out here. I’ll get us some food. I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure you’re ok.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rantaro, I’m <em> fine </em> -”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“For me then.” He blurts out. He doesn’t think he has ever been so sincere with Korekiyo before. “Please. I won’t sleep otherwise. What if you spiral when I leave and hurt yourself again?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo sighs and says “Very well. Do as you wish.” And Rantaro thinks he is glad to play it off as doing Rantaro a favor and not vice versa. Korekiyo disappears into the bathroom and Rantaro hears running water. It’s past noon, and Korekiyo has enough food in the refrigerator for a stir fry, so Rantaro begins cooking lunch. He presses his ear against the bathroom door at regular intervals to listen for any signs of distress.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Korekiyo emerges, hair wet and skin pink, with a clean mask on, Rantaro resists the urge to embrace him again. The pull of contact is stronger than ever, as if he can hold Korekiyo steady and whole if he can’t do it himself. He keeps his elbows tight as he stirs over the stove. Korekiyo comes to look, blinking at him, more alert and present now, and looking more vulnerable than Rantaro has ever seen him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you feel better?” He asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A little.” Korekiyo says. “Do you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro opens his mouth to speak, meeting Korekiyo’s eyes. They are, as ever, an extraordinary topaz, glimmering once more with the usual curiosity and simultaneous understanding. His eyes are incredible. Rantaro never wants to see them dull and scared again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A little.” He echoes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Where have you been, bro? I needed my Mario Kart sidekick! Maki and Kaede kicked our asses!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Shuichi not good enough?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“His strength is in strategy.” Says Kaito generously, ruffling Shuichi’s hair as he blushes below.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t check my phone.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Where were you? You’ve been gone a whole day.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> If I lie and get called out, they’ll wonder why I don’t want to tell the truth. Better to play it cool </em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo’s.” He says offhandedly, sorting through the pile of bills he’s been neglecting. Keebo is sitting at the kitchen table, stirring his tea as he powers through a maths textbook. Shuichi goes to sit with him while Kaito leans on the doorframe.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo’s, huh? Something going on between you two?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why else would you stay the night? You guys have been hanging out a <em> lot </em> lately.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nah, nothing like that. He’s come down with something. He needed cheering up so I made him some food and we watched a movie; that’s all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah, that sucks. I hope he’s ok?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, he’s getting better. He’s usually really healthy so I was just a bit worried.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to get sick.” Says Kaito, cracking open an energy drink and ambling casually out of the kitchen. “Give him our best, yeah?” He calls over his shoulder. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Does he need any extra help? My lecture tomorrow is cancelled so I could get him groceries.” Offers Shuichi. Meek, well-intentioned Shuichi. Rantaro comes up behind him and bends down to give him a hug. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nah, he doesn’t like being babied. He accepted my help with a <em> lot </em> of reluctance, not sure he wants other people involved. Besides, like I said he’s way better already.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shuichi smiles at him. Rantaro thinks about the muffled messiness of his house during the day, and the static shock of it at night. He thinks about pillows strewn across the carpet, curtains never closed, bedroom doors kicked open, a refrigerator full of leftovers and beer, Kaito’s slides next to Shuichi’s brogues next to Rantaro’s sneakers next to Keebo’s boots. He thinks about the hole above the bathroom door that Kokichi made, the way they all shifted to drinking soya milk to make it easier to accommodate Rantaro’s veganism, the ashtray that only Ryoma uses, the painting of them that Angie did hanging in the hall and Kaito’s huge, starry, welcoming bed. Nothing is put in its proper place so everything grows its own. There is a familiarity to the cluttered rooms and drafty windows. There are stories to read in its haphazard comfort. It feels too complex, too lived-in, too comfortable after Korekiyo’s museum-like apartment. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He takes the little wooden doll out of his backpack and sits it on his desk, before getting back to studying.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next time he sees Korekiyo in the flesh is a few days later in class. He’s been checking up on him via text, but seeing him in person is...a little awkward.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They mostly sit in silence, side by side, listening to their professor. Korekiyo seems to be taking every extra class under the sun, and there are so many thick, hardback books in his satchel that Rantaro is surprised the weight of it hasn’t bent Korekiyo’s willowy figure in two. He can’t help but revel in the uncomfortable tension, the discreet rummaging around on both their parts to establish new ground after the shift of Korekiyo’s episode. This unchartered water thrills Rantaro as much as it makes his stomach twist with anxiety. It’s like his relationship with Korekiyo is now as complicated and nuanced as his fascination with the other guy made him feel like it <em> should </em> be. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He watches from the corner of his eye as Korekiyo plays with his pen. He’s looking for clues that he might not be completely back to normal, but there’s nothing. He spends most of the class focusing on Korekiyo, and pretending that he isn’t, rather than focusing on the lecture.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When it’s over and the other students slam their laptops closed and stream out of the lecture hall, Rantaro breaks the silence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You wanna grab coffee?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As ever, there is a perfect, measured pause before Korekiyo answers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes. Traditions are sacred, after all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The air is like the bitter, invigorating smell of gunpowder. He watches Korekiyo contemplate his tea. They appear to have returned to their strange, pseudo-intimacy, except the unsaid adds an extra complication. It’s as if they have been communicating through glass, and one of the panes has shattered. It’s the same, but thinner. Rantaro may not have noticed the glass at all if that pane hadn’t broken, may never have thought there was a way through at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not that he’ll be smashing anything. Not that he isn’t hyper-aware of how fragile glass is, now more than ever. Not that being together on either side of this transparent division isn’t enough; it is. That doesn’t mean he can help touching it. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And your final assessment is next month?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah. I better ace it; I haven’t worked <em> this </em> hard in...well... <em> ever </em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m sure you’ll be splendid. I’m very impressed at how thoroughly you have applied yourself. Perhaps an ultimatum is all that was needed to ground you.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo is back to teasing him, that’s a good sign.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“As soon as it’s done, I’m out of here.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo chuckles. “As expected. Do you have anything planned?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I was thinking Argentina. Or the Faroe Islands.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Fascinating. So nothing booked?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nope. If it all goes to hell, I’ll have to do damage control here.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I see.” Korekiyo looks pensive. He languidly stirs his tea, pushing the little silver spoon around with a single, long, gloved finger.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I wonder…” He murmurs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You wonder what?” Says Rantaro, mouth full of banana bread.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo flicks his eyes up to meet Rantaro’s. “Perhaps you would like to accompany me? I have field work planned next month. In the North. It is not as further afield as I assume you would like to go, but it will be fascinating.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro thinks he must be hearing things. He swallows his mouthful.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Huh?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo...<em> blushes </em> . <em> Is he blushing?! </em> It is difficult to tell with most of his face covered but Rantaro swears his sharp cheekbones get a little pinker.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I imagine part of the thrill of travelling for you is the planning, or the drifting away from the plan, in which case of course this would not be suitable. It’s already arranged and I, at least, have to keep to schedule. But it is funded, and I’ve been granted access to a temple not open to the public, and I thought it might be nice to have some company, for once. And you are easy company. Of course, if you’d rather travel alone, I completely understand - “</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s rambling because he is nervous. Rantaro has gathered enough evidence to reassure himself that he isn’t imagining that Korekiyo is <em> inviting Rantaro to go travelling with him. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah.” He interrupts, embarrassingly enthusiastically. “I...uh, I actually think travelling with someone else would be a nice change. And your studies are always really interesting so it’s not like I wouldn’t get anything out of it. I’d love to go on a trip with you, if you’re sure you want me to come?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s eyes glitter. “Ah! Good. Yes, I am sure. I would not have suggested it otherwise.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Cool, cool. Where are you going?” He has eagerly agreed without really knowing the details. <em> Smooth </em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A mountain village in the North. They have some artefacts that the temple are unwilling to lend the university and so I am being brought to them instead. It will only be for a couple of days. There is accommodation booked with a local family who usually host academic tourists and I have been granted special access to the temple itself. A high honour. One I will not be taking lightly. There will be lots of downtime to explore.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A few days away in the North. Fresh air and mountains. Buildings with so much history spilling out of them that the public can’t get past the door. Rantaro feels like he’s blinking in the sunlight.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That sounds ideal.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You are certain it is not too close? And not too short?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“If my itch isn’t scratched, I can plan another trip afterwards.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And you’re <em> certain </em> you want me there?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes, I am certain.” Korekiyo says, and he holds Rantaro’s eye contact until the last second when he glances away. It is surprising to see him embarrassed by his own sincerity, and endlessly endearing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Awesome. Thanks, Kiyo, I look forward to it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next three weeks are an awful blur of studying. Rantaro’s seeing scrolling text behind his eyes when he goes to bed like ending credits to the day. His back aches from hunching over his desk. There are fifteen tabs open on his laptop and he moves mechanically from his bed to his desk to the library and back to bed again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not that he can complain: it’s the same for a lot of people. Those who have tests coming up disappear into their rooms and stir only for quick meals, bathroom breaks and brief moments of respite in the living room, where they take a break from studying to gather and complain about studying. It’s been ages since Maki or Kaede have been in the house. Keebo looks even more stressed than he usually does. Shuichi gets new books delivered every other day. Kaito shotguns energy drinks and works through the night in a frenzy that betrays his unexpected academic flair. Even <em> Kokichi </em> is around less.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then comes the finals. The endless essays. His head is so full of buildings it’s like carrying a city around on his shoulders: bustling and noisy and <em> full </em> . He scrapes himself off his paper at the end of each one and throws himself down into bed. He tries desperately to clear out the knowledge he just used to make room in his head for new stuff. He applies himself with a reluctant single-mindedness to prove to his faculty that he deserves and <em> wants </em> to be there, even if it sometimes is difficult to believe that himself. He <em> wants </em> this qualification. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>And when it’s done, they go to Ryoma’s flat and eat and drink into the early hours of the following morning, crashing into each other vaguely in time with the music blaring from his record player. Kokichi corners Rantaro in the bathroom and wraps his arms around his neck, yanking him down to his level and grabbing at him with his little hands. Rantaro has kissed Kokichi before, and it is an...<em> unusual </em> experience. This time it’s like Kokichi is counting every one of Rantaro’s teeth with his tongue. He bites on Rantaro’s lip hard enough to make him yelp, and then giggles before doing it again. His greedy hands tremble with untapped, frustrated, near-hysterical energy, like a wild animal kept in a pen too long. Rantaro detangles himself with some difficulty.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re sooooo mean, Rantaro! When will you see we are perfect together?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro, drunk and giddy and amused, rolls his eyes. “I’m supposed to believe that?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nihihi! Yes!” He grins, huge and faux-innocent.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not just that you want a quick fumble now we can party again?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em> Nooooo </em>, whatever would make you say that?” He giggles again, licking a long, wet strip up the side of Rantaro’s neck. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Gross.” Rantaro rubs his saliva off with his shirt sleeve.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Fine</em>, you’re all serious now, I forgot.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Go try Shuichi. He’s feeling a little looser than usual, I think.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll tell him you told me that!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Kokichi climbs into Shuichi’s lap an hour later, the latter stammers and blushes, but doesn’t push him off. Rantaro leaves.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Satisfied with his academic achievement, Rantaro accompanies Korekiyo onto a train five days after his last exam.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The landscape flits by while he twists the wire of his headphones around his fingers and glances over at Korekiyo, sitting in the seat opposite. He has a notebook out and is scribbling something down in it, glancing at an open textbook that looks a little worse for wear. Rantaro feels a familiar tingle of anticipation building in his stomach, crawling up his spine and probing his brain awake again. As short and scheduled as the trip may be, it is an adventure nonetheless, and all the more so because he is going with Korekiyo.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He and Korekiyo will be spending three days together. They will probably be sharing a room. Rantaro will watch him work hands-on with his subject. He will see him among the mountains.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo flicks his eyes up to Rantaro’s: a second of contact, warm in its own way, intense in every other way, and then he returns his focus to his work. Rantaro is so <em> amused </em> by him. He makes Rantaro want to laugh despite there not being anything actually funny or mockable in the way Korekiyo presents himself. He wants to laugh nonetheless, and he doesn’t know why. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>They reach the village after four hours of contemplative, peaceful train travel, and Korekiyo is greeted by his contact at the sleepy little station. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This is my companion, Rantaro Amami. He will be accompanying me on this expedition.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The local man, Kuro, gives Rantaro a polite nod and drives them to their accommodation: a clean, roomy B&amp;B run by a welcoming, intimidatingly-tall woman who carries Rantaro and Korekiyo’s bags up to their room in one trip. Over tea she tells them about the village’s history, its modern cultural significance and its general layout. Rantaro mentally maps the next few days. She all but force-feeds them homemade cookies that melt in Rantaro’s mouth and taste vaguely of carrot. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>After some downtime spent talking and taking it in turns in the washroom, Korekiyo changes into some kind of robes that Rantaro has never seen: black, long and layered, tying in a complicated criss-cross around his waist. It should look prudish or out-of-time, but its dark straight lines and snug fit make him look taller and slimmer than ever and it’s an eerie sort of stylish. He ties the front locks of his hair back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Should I get changed?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo gives him an analytical once-over. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not a formality, do not worry. I simply thought it might be nice to dress for dinner.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They are going into the village to eat with the Kuro’s family. Rantaro tugs at his sweater and loose pants. His sneakers are dirty.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ok, I’ll change. I brought something a little smarter.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He pulls on a loose silk shirt and his more expensive pair of fitted jeans and attempts to comb his hair. He’s not sure how small town folk respond to boys wearing makeup and jewellery, so he decides to be understated.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As if Korekiyo doesn’t look like an ethereal, genderless omen right now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dinner is pleasant. They sit outside under a pergola laden with dripping vines and flowers, and lit with string lights. The evening is cool and still. Rantaro worried it might be awkward, but Kuro does most of the talking. Korekiyo listens with rapt interest, slipping tiny bites of food behind his mask with his chopsticks. Rantaro is more than happy to soak in the calm, <em> new </em> atmosphere and watch Korekiyo’s silky hair catch the magical glow of the string lights and lanterns. They drink more beer than he was expecting, and by the end he is full, laughing and a little tipsy. They bid goodnight to Kuro’s family and walk back to their accommodation. Rantaro is sunny enough to slip his arm through Korekiyo’s, and Korekiyo bumps his shoulder against Rantaro’s as they amble through the quiet streets.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In their room, they roll out their tatami and dim the lights. Rantaro comes back from the washroom to find Korekiyo still unwinding himself from his clothes, sliced through with moonlight shining in silver strips through the windows. Rantaro almost says 'you look beautiful', because it seems an inescapable fact he must voice, but he doesn’t, because Korekiyo <em> must </em> be aware of it, knowing as much of beauty as he does, and besides, they’re about to go to bed and Rantaro doesn’t want to make it weird.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next morning, it is raining. Korekiyo is already dressed by the time Rantaro manages to roll off his bed and sit upright, groaning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Did you drink too much last night?” Korekiyo asks, voice full of amusement, as he packs his bag for the day. He is dressed practically in green pants, a comfortable white shirt and boots. He has tied his hair in a ponytail.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ugh.” Counters Rantaro. “No, I just...it’s <em> 6 AM, Kiyo</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I am aware. Now hurry. Breakfast is in half an hour and then we must begin the hike.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro grumbles as he stands, rubbing his eyes and ruffling his hair. When he opens his eyes, Korekiyo is watching him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m <em> up</em>.” He says, stumbling to the bathroom.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The temple is tucked in the forest on the side of the mountain. It is a long hike. Rantaro loves walking, and this is the bit he has been looking forward to.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After a large breakfast and short drive to the base, he has perked right up, despite the rain. He tucks his flyaway hair under his anorak hood and follows Kuro up the rocky path. Trees tower over them on all sides, vegetation brushes his thighs as he climbs over rocks and blinks up at the watery sky, the clouds occasionally punched through by struggling sunlight.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s a long, rainy, glorious day of walking. The fresh air fills his lungs and creeps into his bloodstream, and the views from the outcrops they pass over take the air straight back out of him again. He feels lost, raw, staggered by the beauty of it. They eat a damp lunch by a waterfall, and while he is peering into the plunge pool, he turns to catch Korekiyo taking pictures of him with his phone. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Let me take one of both of you.” Says Kuro. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For once, Korekiyo seems <em> more </em> awkward than Rantaro as they half-heartedly stage the photo. Kuro hands them the phone back and Rantaro is thrilled with the result. They are dappled in milky light from the canopy of the trees they stand under, and the waterfall behind them throws more fragments of light at them as well as being an appropriately dramatic backdrop. Rantaro looks casual: smiling and throwing a peace sign. One of his best qualities is that he is photogenic, he thinks. Korekiyo stands long and lean next to him, shoulders relaxed, gold eyes glowing, mask obscuring his maybe-smile.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Send this to me.” He instructs Korekiyo.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They reach the temple by the afternoon, and Rantaro feels privileged to be allowed inside when he isn’t even the anthropologist. Its structure is magnificent; not large, just intricate, the wood of its walls and pillars shaped and textured to seem woven into the huge trees that surround it. There are monks waiting for them, wearing only loose white canvas pants tied with rope, and Kuro talks to them quietly while Korekiyo pulls out his tablet. They are introduced to the temple guardians and Kuro explains to Rantaro that while he can be present for the afternoon ceremony, only Korekiyo is permitted to see and handle the artefacts within. Rantaro washes himself, leaves an offering and then sits and watches the afternoon draw on over the valley while Korekiyo is taken to the basement of the temple.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he is called in for the ceremony, Korekiyo is already inside. He is asked to change: only the white canvas slacks are worn in the temple, and he is rather glad of the opportunity to dry off. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Inside, it is dark and cramped. The air is heavy with perfume but all Rantaro can smell is the forest, the wood and dew pressing in on him from all sides. Korekiyo kneels with two monks by the shrine’s altar. Rantaro is handed a wooden bowl filled with water, a single candle floating on the surface. He focuses on not jostling it too much as he walks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The concentration, the pressure of the small, dark space, the heavy smell, the desire to perform perfectly and not fuck up this opportunity, bring a surprising serenity to Rantaro. His heart rate slows, his breathing is even, his gaze sharp and attentive and for once his mind doesn’t wander, more flows from one thought to another like drifting down a stream. He kneels behind Korekiyo and listens to the monks chant. There is a large, strange candle in front of the altar, its wick intricate and confusing, burning slow and then quick, in circles and zig-zags and Rantaro is utterly transfixed. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He thinks about old gods with beards of moss and hair of mist. There is a sense of silence outside the temple, like a hush of the forest protecting its delicate divinity. He gets a little lost staring at Korekiyo’s hair; a jetstone waterfall streaming down his bare back, its silky darkness a mesmerising contrast to his pale skin. It’s like he was made in this room. It’s like Rantaro is praying to him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He doesn’t really remember much of the last part of the ceremony. They ask him to stare into the bowl he is holding and repeat the phrases they chant. It’s hypnotic, and by the time they close proceedings, he feels light-headed and dreamy, floating on spiritual satisfaction. He puts his damp clothes back on in a daze beside Korekiyo, who watches him with undisguised interest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you alright?” He asks Rantaro when they emerge into the evening. They have to start their descent immediately if they want to reach the bottom before nightfall.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah...yeah, I’m good. Really good. That was incredible.” He says, voice warming up, brain re-starting.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s eyes warm. “I’m glad you think so. It was...even more than I was hoping for.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The experience, so special and delicate, unspeakable and transitory, doesn’t seem to fit into the words of their casual conversation, so they don’t talk about it as they head back to the village.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That night, Rantaro jolts awake and blinks in the darkness. The clouds have cleared and the moon is out, creeping into the bedroom through the cracks in the blinds. It must be hours off morning. His eyes adjust and he sees Korekiyo, also awake but out of bed, curled up near the window, peering out at the street below. Rantaro sees the silvery light catch on his tear tracks. He still has a mask on, even now. Rantaro wonders if that is always the case or if he cannot risk Rantaro seeing him without it, so he has decided to sleep in it for these days together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He wants to ask what is wrong. If Korekiyo is sad, Rantaro would like to find out why and try to make it better. But he’s held back by the distance again, that glass between them. Korekiyo thinks he is alone and unwatched, witnessed only by the moon and free to feel, and that is a bit sacred. His sadness, if that is indeed what he’s feeling, is probably more complicated than Rantaro knows. Korekiyo is host to feelings and memories that Rantaro can never guess at, and likely cannot even imagine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo has so much note-writing to do the next morning that he just has miso soup for breakfast and then retreats back up to the bedroom, leaving Rantaro to make slightly stilted but nevertheless pleasant conversation with their host as she keeps refilling his plate, repeatedly offering him fish despite how many times he reminds her he doesn’t eat fish. Korekiyo emerges an hour later, looking energised and bright, and suggests he and Rantaro use their last day to explore. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>They spend half the day in the forest, taking pictures of the scenery and talking, propped up by trees, and the other half in the village, eating and buying souvenirs. By the time their train pulls in, Rantaro is happily exhausted. They thank Kuro and find their seats, watching the landscape rewind and disappear. The three days have passed in the blink of an eye.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you for accompanying me, Rantaro. This was much more enjoyable than travelling alone.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thanks for having me!” Rantaro beams. “And hey, if you find yourself wanting company in the future, just ask. I feel totally refreshed.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro spends the journey thinking about forests and cities and watching Korekiyo through his reflection in the glass of the window.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When they part back home, Rantaro doesn’t think twice before pulling Korekiyo into a hug. Only when he pulls away and pats his friend’s shoulder does he remember that they don’t really <em> do </em> that. Korekiyo looks taken aback for a second, but then blinks it away quickly and nods.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll see you around.” Rantaro says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hmm, of course.” And Rantaro <em>knows</em> he is smiling.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks again for your kind words - the brainrot is real bad so I did put a fair bit of effort into this fic and I'm really glad it's going over well, especially for a less popular ship. </p>
<p>T/W for this chapter: discussions of abuse, trauma, some other pretty heavy stuff and some more light and fun recreational drug use lol</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Things ease after Korekiyo’s breakdown. Rantaro has seen what Korekiyo has been keeping from him, and dropping his guard soothes the tension. Their meetings seem less formal and organised. A few days later, Korekiyo just...<em> drops by</em>. He rarely comes to Rantaro’s house, since it’s too noisy for Korekiyo to fully relax and Rantaro likes the excuse to get away for a bit, but he comes round with boba tea and his eyes lined intricately in silver and asks if Rantaro wants to play the board game they’ve been meaning to get around to.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They have a blissful, relaxed half hour in the living room, learning the game, bouncing off each other’s strategies, before Kaito, Keebo and Shuichi get in, with Kaede and Kokichi in tow. Korekiyo stays long enough to be polite, introducing himself to Kaede and talking with Shuichi about his studies, before turning down the offer of dinner and excusing himself. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He is <em> so </em> pretty, where did you find him?!” Asks Kaede, making herself at home on a beanbag. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rantaro picked him up in class. He collects hot people, don’t ya know?” Says Kokichi, grinning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why are you hanging around like a bad smell, then?” Teases Rantaro, knocking into Kokichi where he is precariously balanced on the arm of the couch. He loses his grip and lands on the floor with a <em> thud</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So <em> mean</em>, dearest Rantaro!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He gets a text from Korekiyo the following week:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> “Our mutual acquaintance, Mr Gokuhara, has invited me to go and see a movie with him. I think it heavily features insects. He has extended this invitation to you after I told him about our trip. I don’t know how fond you are of insects, but if you want to make an excuse, I will vouch for you.” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He laughs out loud and replies: <em> “I don’t mind bugs so much. Get the feeling you do, though! I’ll come. I love Gonta.” </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The movie is confusing, although Rantaro thinks it is meant for kids. Korekiyo is as engaged with it as he is with any new piece of cultural information he comes across, although Rantaro can see him tensing and twitching at the close-ups of the animated bugs. Gonta, a huge, warm, keen presence between them, watches the whole thing with rapt interest and wide eyes. When they leave he is on cloud nine, pulling Rantaro and Korekiyo into a rib-crushing hug to show his gratitude.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As they head for home on the same train, Rantaro observes “I didn’t think you’d hate insects. You’re usually into creepy stuff.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not that I <em> hate </em> insects, it’s just...looking at them too closely reminds me of when I’ve had them stuck in my hair. It’s very difficult to extract flies or grasshoppers from it, you see? It was a frequent and somewhat horrid occurrence in my childhood.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro laughs and ribs at him a bit, but it doesn’t escape his notice that Korekiyo willingly offered an insight into his past. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>And they keep coming, trickling into conversation, and Rantaro sweeps them up and tucks them away as subtly as possible. A book he read in middle school, a doctor he used to visit, the kind of buildings he grew up around; snapshots of a history that Rantaro tries to piece together. He gives back double what he gets, talking about his big family, his sisters and his careless but loving parents, his disinterest in and yet surprising aptitude for schoolwork, the friends he made, the crushes he nurtured, the places he’d cycle to on weekends. Korekiyo is always grateful for the information, and soaks up all Rantaro offers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He asks about his sisters one afternoon, and Rantaro powers through his usual monologue of their different characteristics and relationship to him. Korekiyo listens silently, and then, once Rantaro is done, bows his head like he is absorbing it all, and then changes the subject. Rantaro makes a point to call them all over the following few days.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The translucent, empty edges of Korekiyo fill out, little by little, and yet Rantaro’s interest doesn’t wane. The more he is given, the more he wants to take. But he thinks about sweat and blood and tears, and he knows he would never pry, even now, even after everything.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo invites him over one afternoon to celebrate the approaching end of their year of study. Rantaro brings some books and prints Korekiyo let him borrow and Korekiyo insists on making them dinner, more as an experiment in his own culinary competence than anything else, but as ever, Rantaro is keen to be involved. He watches Korekiyo overcook the rice and undercook the greens.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re not usually this bad, right? Why did you do it in this order?” He laughs from the doorway. Korekiyo actually <em> huffs </em> at the stove. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“While cooking is well within my capabilities, this specific meal requires the ingredients to be prepared in a careful sequence and for a certain time. I must have misjudged the quantity of rice. Or perhaps I used the wrong kind of mirin…” He stirs his sauce, tapping his covered chin with his index finger. “I must apologise in advance. I doubt it will be palatable. I’ll be surprised if it’s even <em> edible</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro laughs again. “Kiyo, you could serve me gravel and arsenic and I’d still eat it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo looks at him oddly at that, and Rantaro is unexpectedly embarrassed, but he brushes it off, as ever. “What?” He asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo blinks the intensity out of his eyes and shakes his head a little. “Nothing. Very well, if you are so brave, lay the table please.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The food isn’t <em> that </em> bad, but Korekiyo seems quietly, adorably frustrated regardless, so Rantaro makes a big show of cleaning his plate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ll be ill.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not <em> poison</em>, Kiyo. And besides, do you <em> know </em> how difficult it is to get sick from vegan food? Like... <em> impossible</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo eyes him suspiciously, like he expects him to start vomiting at any moment, but he brings out some mochi and the sweetness drives away the last of the taste of undercooked broccoli. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>As they relax on the couch afterwards, Korekiyo rattling off the list of books he’s expecting in his next delivery, Rantaro remembers something.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh. I’ve got a joint. Do you wanna smoke, or is that like a big no-no in your apartment that’s 90% paper?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo glances around the room, as if noticing this for the first time. “Hmm.” He says it like it’s a question, and waits his usual few seconds before responding to a suggestion. “Is this a habit of yours I am unaware of?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro snorts. “I think it’s difficult to be unaware of someone’s pot habit, so you’d know if it was. I haven’t smoked since the beginning of exams so I thought I’d treat myself. <em> And </em> I’m willing to share.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s eyes narrow in the way they do when he’s smirking. “How generous.” Rantaro can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I find it’s more fun with company. Figured after we’ve travelled together this is the logical next step, and I know how much you love <em> new experiences</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That makes Korekiyo chuckle. “This wouldn’t be my first encounter with marijuana.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well then it will be your first encounter with ‘<em>marijuana’ </em> and me!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo concedes with a cool cock of his brows. “Very well, if you’re willing to share.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“‘Course.” Says Rantaro, fishing the joint out of the inside pocket of his backpack. Korekiyo goes to slide open the windows. The spring night air is mild. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You don’t mind the smell?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll burn incense later.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not pure, but it’s good. I used to smoke it with Angie.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro lights up and takes the first hit. It soaks through him in a wash of satisfied relief, marking the end of the stress of studying. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah, bittersweet, then?” Korekiyo takes the joint from Rantaro’s outstretched fingers, opens the zip in his mask and pushes it through. After a moment, smoke curls out of the slit like a ghost emerging from the crack under a door. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro rolls his eyes. “Not quite.” He laughs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They make idle conversation about Escher until the pot hits and Rantaro struggles to follow the complexities of the discussion, like he’s in one of the prints himself, turned around, walking up staircases on the ceiling. He knows his face has likely gone slacker, and his posture has certainly dissolved so he is more <em> melded </em> to the couch than sitting on it. Frustratingly, Korekiyo still looks composed. His shoulders have relaxed and he leans against the armrest with one elbow, but otherwise his eyes are bright and clear. Distractingly bright and hypnotically clear, beaming out at Rantaro from his increasingly-blurry surroundings. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you miss your sisters, Rantaro?” Asks Korekiyo, absently, distantly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro sighs. “Yeah. I’m used to being away from them, though. It was like that since I got old enough to travel alone. Couple of them got the bug too, so we’re spread across the globe, but they know that all they need to do is call for me and I’d come running, wherever I was.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I see,” Says Korekiyo easily and then, a little less easily, “You must be very devoted to them.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro chuckles. “Yeah, suppose so. I’m the only guy, so it was a lot of wiping away tears and braiding hair growing up. Wouldn’t change a thing though - they’re all infuriating and precious to me in their own ways.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Through the haze of smoke, Korekiyo looks more ephemeral than ever, despite sitting closer to Rantaro on the couch than usual. The impossible distance stretches out, and Korekiyo seems like he might disappear at any minute. Rantaro wants to take his hand and make his eyes happy again. He wants to brush his knuckles over Korekiyo’s cheeks, to smell the collar of his shirt, to hear his joints creak and crack with movement. Maybe smoking with him was a bad idea. Korekiyo can make his thoughts warp and wander like no one else.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“They are...so very fortunate to have a brother as...caring and attentive as you…” He says dreamily, looking into the middle distance rather than at Rantaro.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah…” Rantaro knows, in the base of his skull, that there is a thread on the ground here. “You got siblings?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A pause. A ripple of <em> something</em>. Korekiyo clears his throat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes. A sister.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Huh? Really? That’s cool. Older or younger?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His gaze turns to Rantaro. It is steely. He swallows visibly. “Older.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ve never mentioned her before.” Says Rantaro, softly, trying not to break the surface tension of whatever lake he is skimming across.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She is dead.” Says Korekiyo.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> Oh</em>. <em> Shit</em>. Rantaro tries not to look horrified. Korekiyo’s eyes are still on him but he’s not sure he’s <em> looking </em> at him anymore.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo that...that’s <em> awful</em>, I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have gone on about mine, that’s so <em> insensitive </em> - “</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You had no way of knowing. Besides, <em> I </em> asked <em> you </em> about your sisters. I wanted to know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro lets the tension settle a little before carefully pressing on. He gets the sense that Korekiyo wants to tell him this, that the pot has loosened his worries a little and he is forcing himself to get this out. He wants Rantaro to bear witness to as much as he can bring himself to reveal. “Were you two close?” Rantaro asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes,” Says Korekiyo, “Very.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Perhaps that’s it then; the shadow in Korekiyo’s eyes, the door in the back of his mind, the trauma pressing his brain into a dangerous shape. Perhaps his sister died suddenly, horribly, perhaps he parted with her on bad terms, perhaps he even witnessed it himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you...wanna talk about her?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo looks caught between two oncoming trains. He sinks further into the couch, relaxing but at the same time curling in on himself. He goes to shake his head but then speaks unexpectedly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She was...very clever. And very ill. She doted on me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro can’t imagine the pain of losing someone that important. He can’t imagine losing any one of his complex, irritating, brilliant sisters. Korekiyo looks haunted, his eyes hollow with memory, and Rantaro’s understanding slots neatly into the picture he is building of Korekiyo. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s too bad. If she was anything like you I bet she was wonderful. I wish I could have met her.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s eyes flick to his once more, and they fill with desperate tears. Rantaro’s heart pounds, his head swims with the pot, he doesn’t want Korekiyo to cry, but if he needs to he will let him. He doesn’t want him to snap either, like he did before. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>As they stare at each other, he realises that Korekiyo doesn’t look sad, he looks <em> scared</em>. Rantaro is confused.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well you never will.” He says, distantly. Rantaro feels a cold current travel down his spine, but his face still feels hot. He takes another drag on the joint.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s...really heavy, Kiyo. Thanks for telling me, I really appreciate that you trust me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I...I do. I do trust you.” Korekiyo stammers. He looks as if he is coming to this realisation himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good,” Rantaro smiles, “I’m glad.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro non-too-subtly changes the subject. Korekiyo’s unease visibly lessens. Soon the conversation is swept under the rug and the atmosphere thaws back to smoky serenity. Rantaro’s words feel sweet and sticky, like honey, dripping from his lips. Korekiyo’s voice is husky and low. It makes Rantaro shiver. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He feels the buzz in his lungs, and heat in his cheeks. Korekiyo becomes liquid, slipping over the couch cushions, working his way into his bloodstream, fluid and simmering. He wants to drink him in and swallow him down. He feels a <em> lot</em>, but it doesn’t seem to matter all that much.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For the second time ever, Rantaro stays the night at Korekiyo’s apartment. He isn’t even aware of falling asleep. All he knows is after hours of talking, he wakes up in the dark, wrapped in an unfamiliar blanket, curled up on Korekiyo’s couch. He is parched. He pours himself a glass of water from the tap, eats an apple, and then takes his pants off to stop his belt digging into his stomach and goes back to sleep. In the morning, Korekiyo wakes him up with coffee. Korekiyo doesn’t <em> drink </em> coffee, but he hands Rantaro a half-decent cup regardless. He is fully dressed. Rantaro searches his tired eyes for any regret, but finds none.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rantaro,” Korekiyo starts, bringing Rantaro a pastry. <em> How did he get that? </em> He must have gone out and bought breakfast before Rantaro woke up. “I would like your help with something.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro feels groggy and raw, like scar tissue, but Korekiyo looks clean and composed, and so he hurries to match him, running a hand through his hair and covering his bare legs with the blanket.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sure. What with?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo perches on the end of the couch. “That is vegan, do not worry.” He says, and Rantaro has no doubts that Korekiyo would check, but appreciates the reassurance nevertheless. He takes a bite and the berry compote inside explodes against his tongue and wakes him up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Please go home and change into something you don’t mind getting dirty.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro cannot resist. “Oh?” He raises an eyebrow. Korekiyo rolls his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I am serious. If you are busy today, I will not hold you to it. It is only if you have a spare few hours.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Few hours, huh? I charge by the minute.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo ignores him. “Come over after lunch, if you are willing. If you have other plans, I will see you next week?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He picks up Rantaro’s empty coffee cup and looks at him openly. He seems to be of a single mind, as if whatever he needs Rantaro to help with can’t and won’t wait. He finds himself agreeing before he can really consider it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He goes home in a daze, still a little tired and stiff from a poor night’s sleep, and finishes off the grape soda Kokichi left in their refrigerator to wake himself up. He showers and charges his phone and pulls on a baggy, faded shirt he used to wear to paint with Angie. He thinks it’s an old one of his dad’s, but he isn’t sure. He wears his least favorite jeans and old sneakers and takes off all of his rings, only half wondering what the hell he is actually <em> doing</em>. Keebo asks him where he is going on his way out and he just shrugs. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo needs help with something.” He explains vaguely.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Back at the apartment, Korekiyo’s hair is tied back in a loose bun and his mask is one of his paper disposable ones. He very rarely wears those. Rantaro is even more intrigued. He looks anxious as he lets Rantaro in, which is to say, his gaze is less intent than usual.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you.” He says simply, and Rantaro follows him into the apartment. The subtle stirrings of latent adrenaline make themselves known in his stomach, like this is just another adventure; a smaller, more serious, more worrying adventure.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo regards him for a minute, blinking heavily, and then he sighs. It is so forceful he visibly deflates with it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Follow me, please.” He murmurs, and turns towards his bedroom.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> His...bedroom? </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Three things run through Rantaro’s head simultaneously. The first is the horrifically comic thought that maybe he wasn’t far off with his jokes earlier, and he’s now worried that Korekiyo asked him to wear something he doesn’t mind getting <em> messy</em>. The second is that there is something in his bedroom that Korekiyo cannot describe, and must <em> show </em> Rantaro, and he is somewhat reluctant to have to do this. The third is that he’ll see where Korekiyo sleeps, after almost three years of knowing him and countless hours spent with that closed door lurking in the corner of his eye.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo opens the door without looking at him. The empty, dark space behind yawns open almost comically, like a railway tunnel, sucking in the light of the living room. Korekiyo flicks on the light switch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Whatever he was preparing for, it wasn’t this. Rantaro fails to strangle the weak gasp that rips its way out of his throat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Eyes. Everywhere. Hundreds of them. All staring out at Rantaro from the four walls of Korekiyo’s bedroom.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They differ greatly. Some are small, precise pencil sketches, others are huge; scrawled across a meter of wall crudely in paint, like a child’s drawing. Some are in red, some in black, some in lots of colors, some carved straight into the plaster. Some have been drawn in painstaking detail on paper and then stuck to the wall. Some are neutral and others are angry or despairing. Some are in pairs. Some look like the eyes of animals. Some are old, layered over with hundreds of newer eyes, and some are fresh, judging by their vibrancy and placement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Guilt stares at him from every wall. He is pinned in place by the heavy accusation of countless days of suffering, innumerable breakdowns, more sleepless nights that he can fathom. He feels malice, fury, terror piercing him from every pupil. <em> How can he live like this? Where does he find peace? How could he have ever forgiven himself? </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Perhaps he doesn’t. Perhaps he hasn’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> What happened to you, Kiyo? </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo stands frozen in the doorway. Rantaro moves gingerly into the room. It is unremarkable in its other attributes. There is a wardrobe and a chest of drawers and a plain vanity and two bookshelves and a double bed. There is a print in Mandarin on one wall and a calendar of the phases of the moon on the other and a bedside table holding nothing but a glass of water and a mask. The room is immaculately tidy, like a showroom, with no personal effects or in fact any indications whatsoever that someone lives in it, which makes the jarring contrast of the angry, messy walls all the more unsettling. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He walks to one wall. One of the eyes is drawn using what looks like a blunt instrument, and consists of only seven lines. One is scrawled hastily with something like the rounded point of a finger in deep burgundy, almost brown. <em> Blood? </em>, Rantaro wonders. There is a pair just above his eye level that are large, shaded and emotive. Tears stream from them all the way down to the baseboard. He forces himself not to shudder, although he suddenly feels unspeakably cold.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> “Mokumokuren</em>.” He murmurs, touching a small, almost pretty eye at chest-level.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> A home turned sour from neglect. A hole punched through a paper wall. A broken boundary of shattered glass. Haunted by your house. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I need your help.” Korekiyo says, voice shaking, arms wound so tightly around himself his fingers almost touch his spine. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> I can’t help you, </em> Rantaro thinks<em>, I was stupid for ever thinking I could</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“H-how…” He manages, and then corrects himself, “With what?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo points to the chest of drawers. There is a pile of painting supplies stacked neatly next to it. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I need it gone.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks at Korekiyo carefully for a moment. It feels weird, scrutinising <em> him </em> for once. He’s trembling a little, but his eyes are hard. Rantaro remembers the sense of purpose he’d been radiating that morning. He remembers the progress made the night before.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It isn’t a cry for help, it’s a request for support. Korekiyo has done the heavy-lifting, he just needs Rantaro to witness this next step.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He forces a small smile. “Sure. I’m your guy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo still hasn’t moved so Rantaro summons all the confidence he can find and walks over to the tins of paint. “Cream will look nice in here, but it might take a few coats.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo nods. “I thought so. That’s why I bought several tins. If we need more, I can easily get more.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Cool. I can’t promise a masterpiece, though. I was always a little clumsy in the art department.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That doesn’t matter in the slightest.” Says Korekiyo, arms loosening from the vice grip he has on himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Great! We should move all the furniture we can into the main room and anything else we can cover and put in the middle of the floor. I’m glad you gave me warning; I paint in this shirt all the time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro starts to roll up his sleeves and size up the chest of drawers. They might need to empty the bookcases, or just try and pull them away from the wall. The bed won’t fit through the door, so they’ll just have to cover it. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a headband to keep his bangs away from his face. He realises then that Korekiyo hasn’t moved.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This will take a while.” Korekiyo says. “It will take all day. Maybe even several days. It will be a lot of physical effort, and probably quite boring, and I haven’t even <em> explained </em> - “</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro laughs. It causes Korekiyo to break off.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Worried you’re inconveniencing me?” He shakes his head and laughs again, taking the framed moon chart off the wall.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes,” Korekiyo sounds perplexed, “Yes I am.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, you <em> are </em> inconveniencing me. I do have a life you know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I...yes. Of course.” Korekiyo looks deflated, disappointed in himself. Rantaro laughs again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo, I know we don’t talk about our feelings much, but you’re my best friend. I’d do anything for you.” He says easily, because it is true.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s brow furrows and he looks mildly alarmed. His arms drop to his sides. “You would?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro beams at him, all teeth and sunshine, because he feels it blooming in his chest. “Of course I would! I can only imagine how difficult it was to trust me with this, but you fought through it and showed me what you were hiding. And it’s a little scary, and I <em> am </em> confused, but you don’t need to tell me any more than you feel comfortable telling me. And if you want my help clearing house, you got it. I don’t care how long it takes or how difficult it is, the hard part’s already over, don’t you think? Now stop standing there being useless and come and help me move this.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo, stunned into silence, does as he’s told. A quiet, poignant peace settles over them as they put his sparse possessions away and begin carrying things into the living room. It takes them half an hour to empty the bookcases and then it is very difficult manoeuvring them out of the door. They struggle to lift the chest of drawers so just pull it into the middle and cover it with a pristine dust sheet Korekiyo must have bought specially. They do the same with the bed. They line the baseboard with tape and open the windows. There are eyes around the door frame so they will need to paint over that too, but Korekiyo has a finish to treat the wood after it is covered. Behind most pieces of furniture there are more eyes. Rantaro imagines Korekiyo, in a lurid frenzy, wrenching the bookcase over and scribbling his guilt on the fresh wall behind it. He imagines how many times he must have hurt himself doing this; knocking things over or scratching himself on corners. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo brings him iced tea and an oat cookie, and after a break they carry on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The smell of wet paint and dust is heavy in his nose as they begin to roll cream over the walls. With every stroke, the eyes blink out of existence. With every clear, clean layer, the oppressive atmosphere lessens, the weight lifts, and the lump in Rantaro’s throat shrinks. Some of the eyes are objectively beautiful; intricate and expressive, the work of an artist, but Rantaro cannot find anything to admire in them. Korekiyo can find beauty in the ugly, but Rantaro cannot ignore ugliness in the beautiful. He is angry at an entity, a ghost with no shape or name, a spectre of <em> something </em> that made his friend like this. He bites it down bitterly and channels it into getting the job done.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By the end of the day, the walls are cream. Korekiyo stands in one corner, observing an eye carved particularly deep into the wall, the indent showing through the layers of fresh paint. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We should fill that in before the final coat tomorrow.” Rantaro says over his shoulder. Korekiyo nods.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Will you be ok on the couch? You can stay at mine if you need to.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I will be alright. It is just for one night.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You are so <em> long </em> though.” Rantaro says, and is rewarded with a light laugh.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“An astute observation. Thank you for your concern.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll be round again tomorrow morning, alright? So no slacking.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He slings on his backpack, wiping his hands on his paint-splattered shirt, and shoots Korekiyo a parting grin as he is shown out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rantaro?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro turns back. Korekiyo’s eyes are full of tears again. He’ll never be used to the sight. He doesn’t <em> want </em> to be used to it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you.” He says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro’s smile is small now. “Anytime.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next morning they do the final coat and then go out for lunch while it dries. By the evening, it is dry enough to move all of the furniture back. It looks like a different room once they are finished; entirely without personality, but without yokai as well. There are a few uneven places that carry the ghosts of the more <em> textured </em> eyes, but nothing more shows through the layers of paint. Rantaro’s arms ache and he feels pleasantly exhausted. They push Korekiyo’s bed back against the wall and collapse onto it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Done!” Rantaro says breathily, triumphantly, staring at the ceiling. “It’ll smell of paint in here for a <em> while </em> though.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I do not mind. It is...new.” Says Korekiyo, sitting propped up against the headboard, looking down at Rantaro where he is spread out across the sheets.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro smiles. His skin prickles from the draft seeping in through the open windows. They sit in the quiet for a moment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It is my sister.” Says Korekiyo suddenly. When Rantaro peers up at him, fractured through his eyelashes, his eyes are hollow and his breathing is slow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>'What is your sister?'</em>, Rantaro wants to ask, but he doesn’t because he’s a <em> smart guy </em> who can use <em> context clues</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What happened?” He tries, after a few moments of tense silence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo looks distant again. He takes a while to speak.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“When she died…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro feels a flash of sympathy pain through his chest. The loss of one of his sisters is more that he can bear to think about. He wants to touch him, but isn’t sure it would be welcome.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“...I was finally freed.” Korekiyo finishes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro watches him without saying anything. From his lower angle he can see all of the mechanics of his throat when Korekiyo swallows.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It is her fault.” Korekiyo says, quiet and firm, like he’s reading from a script. Rantaro’s picture of Korekiyo compresses and cracks, fractured and confusing. He scrambles to rebuild it. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What did she do, Kiyo?” He tries, and probably fails, to keep the fear out of his voice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo takes a deep breath in, but does it almost silently. Then he speaks in a flat monologue, staring not at Rantaro but at the newly-painted wall opposite.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My parents left us to our own devices. My mother died when I was two and my father avoided us until his own death. My sister was four years older than me and so effectively raised me herself. She was responsible and kind, intelligent and strong-willed. She adored me. And I adored her. She told me that it didn’t matter if our parents were not there, because fate made us for each other, and that was beautiful. We didn’t need anyone else, as long as we were together. As a child, hearing that was my only source of domestic stability. I would have done anything to make her happy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro feels his positioning is awkward, but doesn’t dare move for fear of starling Korekiyo like a wild animal.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She was always sickly. She had a whole host of autoimmune conditions that left her bedridden for long bouts of her adolescence. During these ill periods she would rely on me, and I was all too willing to look after her as she had done me when I was younger. It was in these times that she talked to me about anthropology, her passion for people, the fascination she felt for culture, and it invigorated me to hear her speak with such enthusiasm. Her love of the subject became mine. I took on all of the research she could not. She planted the interest, but it grew naturally, and quickly. I owe her my livelihood, and I am aware of that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He thinks of Korekiyo before his studies, before the neutral, scrutinising filter of his eyes. He cannot. Who was he before anthropology?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“As we grew older, she became more and more obsessed with our connection, and I met her at every point. She claimed we looked alike, so I grew my hair. I let her dress me in her clothes and paint herself onto my face with makeup. She discouraged me from getting close to anyone else, and would get very jealous if I developed a friendship with other children. I was too young, and too dependent on her, to see this behaviour as a warning sign. I was as taken with her as she was with me, and she had been telling me for as long as I could remember that we were meant for each other, and only each other, and that anyone coming between us would be a disaster. Her violent moods when I came home late or mentioned classmates were less <em> frightening</em>, more heartbreaking. I was hurting my sister by straying from her side, and so I would not. I would devote myself entirely to her, and I was content with that. We would unravel the secrets of the world together, and day by day, we merged into one. I felt utterly complete, wrapped tightly in an embrace that I couldn’t escape and had absolutely no desire to.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s voice grows thin. His eyes narrow. Rantaro holds his breath, dread lining his throat. He knows what is coming before Korekiyo starts speaking again, but it is a blow to his stomach nonetheless.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I cannot pinpoint exactly when her love for me became sexual, but I would guess when I was around thirteen. I don’t think it happened overnight - we had always been incredibly physically affectionate - but it had been building so slowly and steadily that I didn’t realise until it was too late. When she would ask me to touch her, or call me to her in the evenings, or when we would bathe together - activities that had been innocuous and innocent for years - I would start to disappear. Not physically, just...mentally. If I appeared uncomfortable or refused her, she would weep and accuse me of not loving her, of not loving my brilliant, dying sister, the only person I had in the world. It was easier to just...leave my body behind.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro is surprised the confession doesn’t make Korekiyo stammer, or cry, or at least tense up, but he delivers the story calmly, as if it didn’t happen to him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She justified a lot of her actions using anthropology. She would cite cultures with laxer sexual morals or without familial taboos. She would claim that, since all culture is man-made, nothing is unnatural, and we make our own beauty. She said that it was the two of us against everyone else, as it had always been, and we couldn’t tell anyone about our relationship because they wouldn’t understand, and would try to take me away. I used to get sick at the prospect of that. She told me it didn’t matter what others thought, because we were <em> destined</em>, we were <em> special</em>, we were <em> soul mates</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo tilts his head away from Rantaro. Rantaro thinks he has done splendidly, but now is ashamed. He wishes he could say something, <em> anything</em>, to make this easier, but his tongue is lead and his mouth is chalk and he cannot think of a single word that wouldn’t sound contrived or pitying or ignorant.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She died at twenty. Her health had been getting steadily worse, and eventually she had no choice but to agree to go to hospital. Both of our parents were dead at that point, and she was my sole guardian. I don’t remember much about the end. My social worker told me, years later, that I went deaf. Isn’t that interesting? You can go deaf from grief.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He takes a minute to slow down his breathing, which has been pitching slowly towards hyperventilation. Rantaro finds his voice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What happened to you then?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This prompt seems just enough to spur him on, pushing him to stumble over the finish line.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I was taken into care until I was eighteen. It was bad at the beginning. I didn’t talk. I didn’t eat. I didn’t do anything. She would...<em> visit </em> me. At first I thought it was her spirit entering my body, like I’d read about in certain cultures. I’d perform rituals and ceremonies to try to contact her, and so when she began taking control of my body once more I was so grateful and relieved I didn’t fight it. That’s when the episodes began. I came to realise, over time, that it wasn’t her ghost, or anything of the sort, it was the residue of her that my memory replicates to try and alleviate the trauma. But I kept hurting myself, and sometimes others. I would remember nothing and speak out of character, act aggressively or violently, act like <em> her,</em> or at least the version of her my brain conjured. It truly was as if she was possessing me. They assigned me several grief counselors but nothing worked. I owe everything I have now to one social worker who noticed the way I’d rip at my own skin in the night and sent me to a psychiatrist who specialised in child sexual abuse. He tapped away at me until he found it, my secret, something I’d buried so deep I’d forgotten how much damage it was doing, like a tumor I’d come to know as part of my own body. I was in intensive therapy for two years, and made a lot of improvements. I went about exorcising her, and although she is stubborn, it started to work. I threw myself into my studies; a bit of my sister I could immerse myself in without spiralling, and found it invigorated me. It gave me a reason to live, I suppose.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo faces forward again. His eyes glitter with tears. “And people,” He says, a little choked, “My goodness, <em> people...</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks at Rantaro at last, and Rantaro’s heart actually <em> skips</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of everything she took from me, that was the most cruel. Since I was reintegrated into society, I’ve found other people to be an endless source of fascination and hope. To this day I wonder at the complexity of the mind of another. Companionship, even if I still can’t handle too much at once, is something to look forward to, and something that keeps me afloat and separate from my childhood. I am...still learning, I had a bit of a late start when it comes to making friends, but I’ve found most social endeavours to be extremely gratifying. Trust is difficult, but it is rewarding.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro smiles at him. He cannot help it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I trust you, Rantaro. That is why I asked for your help. That is why I am telling you this. I believed you when you said you would do anything for me. This is to demonstrate that I feel the same way.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro sits up and rolls his shoulders. His curiosity about Korekiyo has been sated, and he finally learns what he has been only guessing at, but it doesn’t feel like he has achieved something, rather like he has been <em>given</em> something. He wants to give something back, but cannot think of what he has that is of equal value.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thanks for telling me, Kiyo. A lot of things about you that...<em>confused </em> me now make a lot of sense.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo nods, like he’s trying to get back a semblance of normal conversation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I go to therapy twice a week, hence why I am not always available. I am private and a little...<em> socially unusual,</em> I know. I only like to be touched on my own terms. I wear a mask to keep the hallucinations of my sister at bay. I feel more in control, more protected, with my mouth covered.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You must have made amazing progress. That kind of experience could so easily break a kid.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I committed myself to my treatment. At first I thought I had to live for my sister, to preserve the part of her within me, but as I learnt more of our situation from a pathological perspective, I began to recognise her as the villain. My therapist explained that I can still miss her while also understanding that she hurt me. That I can still find things that were beautiful in something that almost destroyed me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her grip on him hasn’t gone, but Rantaro is amazed by how far Korekiyo has been able to loosen it. He’s a little off, a little <em> odd</em>, with something hard and horrid behind inquisitive eyes, but he trusts Rantaro. He knows that he will help him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A strong surge of protectiveness washes over Rantaro, like a tidal wave knocking the breath from him. Korekiyo may see the good aspects of his sister in his studies, his memories, his appearance, perhaps, but Rantaro nurtures his hatred of this girl, this <em> woman, </em> he never met. All he can think of is Korekiyo screaming at him to stay away, of Korekiyo’s arm bleeding through his bandages, of him folding himself into a corner, of him scrawling demon eyes on the walls of his most private and personal space. He wonders if that is what the inside of Korekiyo’s head looks like; familiar, beautiful, golden eyes of countless mokumokuren blinking out at him from the abandoned ruins of his childhood home.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He wants to tell Korekiyo this. He wants to <em> ensure </em> that Korekiyo doesn’t think he is in any way responsible. He wants him to share Rantaro’s anger at how unjust it all is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> And she died before she could face any consequences</em>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But no, this isn’t about Rantaro’s rage, or a long-dead woman who was clearly not right in the head herself. It’s about making sure Korekiyo never regrets telling him this.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I won’t break your trust, Kiyo, and I won’t manipulate it for my own gain, like she did. If you need help, I’ll give it to you, and if you want to be alone, I’ll leave you be. And, if you just want to hang out, it’s always nice to see you.” He tries to make his voice a little brighter. Korekiyo looks more present as a result.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you.” He says, standing from the bed. “And thank you for helping me get rid of her here.” He gestures to the room. “I will relapse, I know I will, but what is important is putting things back together afterwards.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro stands too. He’s a little dizzy. “Hey. I’ll paint these walls over as many times as you need me to. Even if this place ends up the size of a broom closet.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo <em> maybe </em> smiles. Rantaro tries to shake off the dust of the past and make things a bit better. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You wanna go get pancakes? We can go to the place that does the really fluffy ones.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“There is only one vegan option.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, but it’s great, so I don’t care. And the plates are really pretty and I know you like it there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah, very well, if you insist. But I am paying.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hell no, you did all the emotional labor, <em> I’m </em> paying.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It is traditional to repay DIY with food or alcohol. I will pay.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then buy me a beer later, this is on me and that’s the end of it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They bicker half-heartedly as they get ready to leave. Rantaro closes the bedroom door firmly behind them.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Boom: chapter five. This one was so much fun to write. I hope you enjoy it! </p><p>I think the next chapter will be the last, but it depends how long it ends up being. It'll be up next week, anyway.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I invited Kiyo to the party this weekend.” Rantaro tells his gathered housemates. Kaito shoves a handful of potato chips into his mouth and pumps his fist in victory as he clears another level on Mario Galaxy. </p><p> </p><p>“<em>Luminary of the Stars </em> strikes again! And it only took me twenty eight attempts!” He announces with his mouth full. “Sorry, what did you say bro?”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro doesn’t look up from his phone as he scrolls idly through Instagram. “Kiyo. Our party on Saturday. I invited him.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh. I sort of assumed as much already.” Says Kaito, his focus back on the screen. </p><p> </p><p>Shuichi is patching a hole in his favorite jacket, delicately working the needle and thread through the pinstripe pattern. “I spoke to him in class. It sounds like he intends to come along.” He says.</p><p> </p><p>A small glimmer of triumph: Rantaro doesn’t let it show. “He’s a bit flaky, but it <em> is </em> the last party of the year. I figured he’d wanna drop by.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why doesn’t he come here much? Your other friends do.” Kaito then howls in defeat as he is swallowed by a piranha plant. Rantaro looks from him, to the messy floor, to the pile of cans in the recycling bin, to Keebo jabbing at a lightly smoking contraption he is assembling for electronics class. </p><p> </p><p>“Dunno.” Rantaro lies.</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro is struggling to sleep again, but it isn’t wanderlust or exam anxiety for once. He lies awake long into the night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what Korekiyo told him. Unwilling to return to that dark, writhing pit of despair and forcing Korekiyo to talk about it more, Rantaro’s wandering mind attempts to fill in the blanks against his will. It’s unavoidably awkward with Korekiyo now, but a tender awkwardness made bearable by compassion, and so he spent the couple of times he’s seen Korekiyo since trying to keep the mood positive. They went to an exhibition containing some Giorgio de Chirico prints, as they said they would, and the atmosphere between them was more peaceful and empathetic than sombre.</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro has thought of little else <em> other </em> than Korekiyo for a whole week. He hopes he does come to the party on Saturday just to recontextualise him amongst other people. Maybe that way, in a normal scenario when Rantaro has other things to focus on, Korekiyo will cease to seem like the only other person in the world. Maybe Rantaro could integrate him into his friendship group more thoroughly, and Korekiyo won’t seem so lonely.</p><p> </p><p>000</p><p> </p><p>“Kokichi, for the last <em> fucking </em> time, no Hatsune Miku on the damn playlist!” </p><p> </p><p>“It’s not <em> me </em> putting it on, moron. It’s <em> obviously </em> Kee-boy!”</p><p> </p><p>“You think I’m dumb enough to believe that obvious a lie?! I’ve known you for three damn years!”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro can hear Kaito and Kokichi bickering downstairs over the music. He smiles fondly at the absolute inanity of the argument. The full-length mirror presents him with his own reflection. He looks much better now he has dried his hair and it resembles a soft green cloud curling down around his eyes. He’s picked out his pale pink boiler suit, striped vertically with silver and unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest. His eyeliner is smoky, smudged and deliberately careless. He’s used his favorite fine glitter to make his cheekbones and eyelids shimmer. He feels a headache coming on so he’s taken two painkillers but regrets it now because he’ll have to start drinking in the next ten minutes if he wants to be able to keep up with the others. </p><p> </p><p>Instead of risking getting involved with Kaito and Kokichi’s fight, Rantaro goes to Shuichi’s room to warm up before the party begins. Shuichi is particular and precise with his eyeliner so Rantaro spreads himself on his sheets with a beer, chatting idly to him under the calming blue glow of strip LEDs until he hears the front door bang open and the tell-tale shriek of Miu entering the house.</p><p> </p><p>“What up, dickbrains?! The main event has arrived!” Miu announces, muffled only slightly by the floor separating them.</p><p> </p><p>“Already? I thought I’d get at least an hour of only having to deal with Kokichi before she got here.” Rantaro says, without malice. Shuichi laughs.</p><p> </p><p>“You take Miu and I’ll take Kokichi and we’ll just have to keep them apart until more people arrive to distract them.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds like a plan.”</p><p> </p><p>The ‘plan’ fails after only fifteen minutes but Rantaro is happy and tipsy enough when Miu and Kokichi finally clash that he can appreciate the chaos of it without his eardrums feeling assaulted. It’s mostly revolting innuendo and inventive insults anyway, just shouted at an unnatural decibel level. He slumps on the couch with Maki and Kaede and laughs as Kaito gets involved. It isn’t a real party unless there is a ridiculous verbal, and sometimes physical, clash between Miu and Kokichi, and thankfully on this occasion they have wrung each other out by the time the majority of the other guests arrive.</p><p> </p><p>They file in through the front door one after another. Rantaro recognises about two in three guests, as friends have brought other friends, and by 11 the place is pretty full. Gonta arrives in a three-piece suit, clearly two sizes too small, his barrel chest straining the buttons, and his hair as uncombed as ever. He shakes Rantaro’s hand politely and then, that formality out of the way, sweeps him into a hug while Rantaro laughs. Tsumugi brings a group of her society friends and a load of Kaede’s friends from the year below arrive in costume, having declared the event they were just at a dud. Angie almost knocks him over by throwing herself at him as soon as he opens the door. He hasn’t seen her in a while, but things weren’t really awkward after the break up, and he has kind of missed her. Her two friends, Tenko and a small girl that Rantaro hasn’t met before, follow her in. Tenko gives him the usual distrusting nod, but he knows she’ll warm up as the night goes on. As much as she ‘hates’ men, she seems to get along alright with Rantaro. Some of his housemates are not so fortunate.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, welcome. What’s your name?” Rantaro asks the short girl. She’s in a little black dress and sparkling tights. She has a bright red bob and a cool hat pulled low over her inexpressive brow.</p><p> </p><p>“Himiko.” She drawls.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s <em> my </em> girlfriend!” Tenko shouts triumphantly, looping an arm round Himiko’s neck so tightly it’s almost a chokehold. Himiko pushes the brim of her hat up and looks unbothered.</p><p> </p><p>“Nice to meet you.” Says Rantaro, amused. Himiko nods at him and lets herself be dragged by Tenko into the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo arrives at half eleven. He blinks in mild surprise in Rantaro’s hallway at the noise spilling out from the other rooms, the people milling in the corridor, the loud crashing coming from the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“Am I late?”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t think I gave you a specific time, so no.”</p><p> </p><p>“I was under the impression that these things started late and went on late.”</p><p> </p><p>“You haven’t been to one of ours. They end late but start early. It’s just madness for hours and hours, basically.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo looks unmoved by this idea. “How intriguing.”</p><p> </p><p>He looks amazing, yet again, and Rantaro is starting to grow weary of it. His outfit is so <em> simple</em>, just an expensive-looking black shirt that fits him perfectly and tight black jeans, covered by a long black coat, and yet it’s sophisticated and elegant on Korekiyo’s tall, slender frame. His hair is entirely loose and silky, and his mask is less heavy-duty than usual; just a black pleated satin mouth covering with elastic loops that hook around his ears. He has applied his eye makeup with a light and careful hand, and as a result his topaz eyes look brighter than ever, framed by long eyelashes. Standing beside him, all pink and green and glittery, Rantaro feels they couldn’t look more different, like a milkshake next to a martini. It’s a discrepancy he finds he likes.</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo’s gaze slides down Rantaro’s face and rests for a second on the exposed skin of his chest, then flicks back up and regards him coolly. </p><p> </p><p>“You wanna ditch your coat?” </p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo glances around at the piles of shoes and coats by the door with obvious distaste.</p><p> </p><p>“C’mon, you can leave it in my room.”</p><p> </p><p>“Does that make me special?”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course.” Rantaro teases, and turns to lead him further into the house, up the stairs and into his bedroom. Korekiyo hasn’t been up here in a while, and he gives it his standard once-over, taking extra time observing the books on the nightstand, the potted plants on the window, the shirt hanging from the wardrobe door and the little doll he brought back from China, sitting near Rantaro’s desk lamp. He slips out of his coat. Rantaro takes it from him then drops it unceremoniously over the back of his desk chair. The party downstairs sounds muted and distant and Rantaro takes a deep breath in. Only then does he notice Korekiyo is holding something.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh. For you, since you are so fond of it.” Korekiyo holds out the bottle to Rantaro. It is sake; the expensive kind that they drink together sometimes. Rantaro takes it reverently.</p><p> </p><p>“Wow, really? Shit, that’s so nice of you, this stuff is <em> expensive </em>!” He reads the label. Korekiyo holds his left elbow with his right hand in an unusual display of bashfulness.</p><p> </p><p>“It is no trouble, really.”</p><p> </p><p>“All you do is buy me stuff.” Rantaro says, fondly. </p><p> </p><p>“It is a thank you. For the invite. For...well, for everything, I suppose.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro knows what he is talking about. He smiles softly. It is important to Korekiyo that Rantaro accepts this. Perhaps, in his mind, it makes them closer to even.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, Kiyo. I really appreciate this. It’s too nice to waste it all on tonight, but we should have a glass now anyway. Then I’ll stash it.”</p><p> </p><p>“What a good idea.” Korekiyo says. They head for the door.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, Kiyo. These things can get pretty rowdy, so if you get uncomfortable or you wanna take a moment, feel free to come up here. No one else should be in here, and you can lock the door from the inside.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo’s brows lift a little, like he has realised something. “Thank you, that is very considerate.”</p><p> </p><p>After effectively shotting their glasses of sake, Korekiyo heroically sucking his up through a straw, they move into the living room. Gonta is upon them at once. He doesn’t drink, but the atmosphere alone is clearly enough to imbue him with more energy, not that he needs it, and he shakes Korekiyo’s hand so hard he looks like he might wrench his shoulder out of its socket. Korekiyo, for all his stoicism, seems happy to see Gonta, even in this hyperactive state, so Rantaro leaves them to catch up.</p><p> </p><p>The party is, as Rantaro expected, <em> a lot</em>. By midnight Kokichi is on top of the bookcase, cackling semi-maniacally and dangling the speaker out of reach of a furious Kaito as it blasts Hastune Miku. Miu and Ryoma have amassed an audience around the kitchen table as they compete in a drink-off. Rantaro’s money is on the latter, since Miu is all talk and already slurring her words. All he knows for certain, however, is that if there is any mess he is <em> not </em> cleaning it up. </p><p> </p><p>Keebo and his friend Kirumi are shouting their conversation over the music. A line of boys queue up to try and beat Maki in an arm wrestle, all without success. When Kaito grapples control of the music back from Kokichi and puts his own playlist back on, the living room carpet becomes a dancefloor. Kaede drags a blushing Shuichi into the crowd with her. Angie spins around with Tsumugi, laughing joyfully, throwing her arms in the air with her trademark gleeful vibrancy. Rantaro gets dizzy from being bounced around between Kaito and Gonta for the duration of three songs.</p><p> </p><p>Then comes the drinking games, which involve a lot of poorly-mixed alcohol and ridiculous forfeits. Kokichi deals out the worst of the dares, and joyfully accepts his own, prank-calling his very tired-sounding parents and weaving his usual elaborate tales. Tenko is almost visibly fuming when she is dared to kiss Kaito, but agrees to do it when people chalk her reluctance up to a weak stomach. Afterwards she goes straight back to the sofa and pulls Himiko into her lap, where she has been for most of the night. People blurt out secrets, confess crushes, take dubious shot after dubious shot, and Kokichi, almost predictably, strips to his underwear and climbs out of the window, scrambling up onto the roof and waving at cars driving past. Korekiyo observes the antics from his seat in the corner, exchanging comments occasionally with Kirumi, who sits with him. He doesn’t look uncomfortable or overwhelmed, and so Rantaro relaxes.</p><p> </p><p>Once everyone is fed up with games, they split and merge into shifting groups. Several people <em> disappear </em> rather poignantly. The floor of the kitchen is sticky from spilled drinks and conversations range from teary to angry to flirty all within a few minutes. Rantaro bounces from one to another, dragged here and there by his friends, pulled back to the kitchen every so often for a refill. After using the bathroom he looks at himself in the mirror. He looks wasted, but he thinks it’s in a sort of sexy way. He ruffles his hair and undoes another button on his boiler suit. His glitter is smudged, but it wasn’t neat in the first place, so it doesn’t really matter.</p><p> </p><p>He must be right about his appearance, because the next half hour sees him hit on by a girl he’s never met before. She’s dressed like a butterfly - one of Kaede’s friends. She’s very pretty, but he struggles to stay engaged in her conversation, and after she places a very overt hand on his chest, he finds a way to detangle himself as nicely as possible. Kaito and Kokichi are arguing again, but Kokichi has backed him into a chair and is grinning menacingly at him in a way that Rantaro recognises as his own form of flirting. <em> God help the poor bastard</em>, he thinks. If Kaito’s still there in another fifteen minutes, Rantaro will go and rescue him.</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo is also talking to someone Kokichi doesn’t recognise. She’s a friend of Tsumugi’s, he thinks, punk-emo in style, with hard bangs and an undercut, lots of piercings and deliberately ripped tights. She’s short and fat and very attractive. They’re standing near the open window so she can smoke. Her black lipstick leaves a mark on her cigarette that makes it look charred at both ends.</p><p> </p><p>She is telling Korekiyo something that clearly has his attention. He blinks placidly at her, tilting his head down to retain eye contact, and then murmuring something back. She smirks and takes another drag, leaning more heavily against the windowsill. Rantaro thinks she must compliment his hair, because his eyes look like they do when he smiles, and he pulls a lock over his shoulder, allowing her to lightly touch it. </p><p> </p><p>Rantaro has been watching with the detached interest that he observed Korekiyo in the bar, sealing the deal with the couple he spent the night with, until the moment she touches his hair. Until the moment Korekiyo <em> lets </em> this strange girl touch his hair. Korekiyo’s bright gaze is sultry, like it was that night, his body language similarly controlled and difficult to read, but this time, Rantaro feels knocked a little off kilter for some reason, like a passerby has shoved him.</p><p> </p><p><em> Huh. Weird</em>.</p><p> </p><p>He ignores it and goes back to his conversation with Keebo and Miu. Ten minutes later and he goes to find Kokichi and Kaito, but they’ve moved from the chair so he gives up. His head swims pleasantly, his world a little glittery with alcohol, as he listens to Miu talk about vibrators…</p><p> </p><p>...and looks back at Korekiyo and the girl he is talking to.</p><p> </p><p>They’re still there, talking, just the two of them. Is it Ranataro’s imagination or are they standing a bit closer? Are Korekiyo’s pupils a little bigger than usual? Is his posture a bit more open?</p><p> </p><p><em> Calm it, don’t be weirdly possessive. Just because he’s my friend doesn’t mean he can’t be anybody else’s</em>, Rantaro berates himself.</p><p> </p><p>The music is a dull thud against his eardrums and his vision is a little blurry round the edges now, like a poorly developed polaroid picture. The tug under his skin, that he’s only just noticed but that doesn’t feel <em> new </em> per se, draws his eyes back to Korekiyo again and again, checking in on him every couple of minutes. He thinks Keebo might have noticed and is too polite to say anything, and Miu keeps talking and talking. </p><p> </p><p>Perhaps he’s a bit disconcerted, seeing Korekiyo so easily social? Perhaps the revelation of his past means that Rantaro has trouble reconciling the image of a scared, shaking, vulnerable Korekiyo with the cool and confident version he sees now. Perhaps he’d like to touch Korekiyo’s hair and is realising now that he probably <em> could </em> have already, he’s just never asked. Perhaps he’s been thinking about Korekiyo too much recently. Perhaps he’s had too much to drink.</p><p> </p><p>Through the din and the distraction, Korekiyo’s eyes flick up and catch Rantaro’s. <em> Shit, busted</em>. He looks away, but when he looks back, golden eyes are still there, pinning him in place.</p><p> </p><p>What does he have to be ashamed of? He can look at Korekiyo if he wants to. There is nothing special or secret about their relationship that makes them co-conspirators, no matter <em> what </em> ideas seem to be growing unchecked in Ranataro’s wandering mind. A shock of energy, like static, starts at the back of Rantaro’s head and zips down his spine to his heels. He doesn’t know exactly what it is, but he thinks it might be anger. No, frustration. It’s more like frustration. Either that or he’s going to puke.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> What am I frustrated by? Where is this coming from? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t like this prickling of his skin, the flush of heat stemming from his chest, the weird, uncomfortable pressure on his windpipe that only intensifies the longer Korekiyo stubbornly holds his gaze…</p><p> </p><p>He thinks he sees something pass over Korekiyo’s face - a microexpression he can only pick up after all the hours they have spent together. It looks like when he has been staring at the page of a book for several minutes and finally <em> fully </em> understands what he is reading.</p><p> </p><p>The intensity of it shakes Rantaro further. Korekiyo just <em> barely </em> tilts his head.</p><p> </p><p><em> Need to get out of here</em>, Rantaro thinks, stumbling a little as he excuses himself clumsily from Miu’s ramblings. He gives Korekiyo a backward glance and heads for the stairs. He doesn’t turn around until he reaches his bedroom. </p><p> </p><p>There is a bra hanging off the inside door handle. He put that there as a joke during his last fling with one of Kokichi’s influencer friends. He hasn’t thought about them in a while. The handle turns under the strap of it.</p><p> </p><p>As if they’d had the conversation out loud, Korekiyo has gleaned what Rantaro subconsciously wanted and followed him. Rantaro isn’t sure <em> why </em> he wanted to be alone with Korekiyo, but now it has happened he is sure. He wanted him away from everybody else, like he fits better here, among Rantaro’s intimate surroundings, alone and quiet and looking at him pensively.</p><p> </p><p>Without saying anything, Rantaro moves behind him and shuts the door like he always does. He locks it, too, as an afterthought. </p><p> </p><p>“Is everything alright, Rantaro?” Korekiyo asks, his voice velvety and low, framed by the glow of the streetlamp shining through the window behind him.</p><p> </p><p>He seems so...<em> composed</em>. It annoys Rantaro. After all he has seen of Korekiyo, all they have bared to one another, he shouldn’t look so neat. The immaculate version that everyone else sees doesn’t fit him anymore, and it’s catching on him like a barb. Maybe that is why he is frustrated, even though he knows that is not a good enough reason.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. Yeah...everything’s fine.” Says Rantaro, more to himself than to Korekiyo, and shakes his head to clear it. He swallows around the clump of words in his throat, so tangled he can’t make them out, and goes to open the door again. </p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo reaches forward and takes his hand. More grabs it, actually. His hands are bare. His skin is smooth and cool against Rantaro’s slightly clammy palms. The pads of Rantaro’s fingers are harder, his knuckles roughened, his nails bitten and painted silver and his fingers covered in rings. Korekiyo’s hands are careful and clean, his fingers long and the fine bones moving precisely under pale skin.They are a striking visual contrast. Korekiyo’s eyes are hard. He <em> knows. </em> Rantaro doesn’t know <em> what</em>, but he knows. </p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo slowly raises Rantaro’s hand to his face, and Rantaro watches as if through someone else’s eyes. He is initially confused about his objective, but feels a spasm of shock in his gut when Korekiyo places his fingers over the hem of his mask, just below his cheekbone, and leaves them there. It is an invitation.</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro looks at him for a long moment, and Korekiyo just stands there fucking <em> blinking </em> at him, as impossible to read as ever, while Rantaro feels like his heart is going to rip through his ribcage. Without really thinking he accepts this invitation, and tugs on the mask. He slides his fingers up towards Korekiyo’s right ear and unhooks the elastic, and then pulls the whole mask away from his face, throwing it onto his desk without a second glance. He looks at Korekiyo’s bare face and prepares for a shock.</p><p> </p><p>It doesn’t come, or at least, the horror doesn’t. Maybe he had subconsciously expected scars, burn marks, at least a cleft palate, but there is nothing. Korekiyo’s nose is small and straight, his chin is pointed, his jaw is strong, his mouth is pink and a little feminine. He is unspeakably pretty in the low light, his breath coming steadily between parted lips, and Rantaro takes a minute to convince himself that this stranger in his bedroom is the same person wrapped in bandages that he’d sat on the floor of his apartment with and cradled until he’d cried himself into a stupor.</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro exhales shakily and it sounds so loud in the quiet room. Somewhat out of his mind, he reaches his hand back up to hold Korekiyo’s jaw, to map out his right cheekbone, to trace the curve of the underside of his lip, trembling. He’s struggling to believe what he is seeing. When he looks back up at Korekiyo’s eyes, they are steady, knowing, calm...</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I’ve been a fucking idiot… </em>
</p><p> </p><p>It hits him all at once then, how blind he has been. Over the last few months, maybe even the last few years, he has been so hopelessly, so <em> thoroughly </em> seduced that he didn’t even notice until he was neck deep in it. The <em> frustration </em> from earlier roars to life in his stomach, fiery and thrashing like a dragon. His cheeks flare up, his skin prickles, his heart <em> races</em>. He feels set alight, burning in his bedroom, touching Korekiyo’s cheek.</p><p> </p><p>He jolts, stumbles, <em> falls </em> towards Korekiyo’s lips, without thinking much beyond <em> ‘I have to put my mouth there’. </em> He pulls, but Korekiyo is already stepping forward. Their noses bump together and Rantaro manages to take a moment to stew in this delightful, <em> enlightening </em> turn of events, sharing air, hot and awake, before he kisses him. Korekiyo, as he expected, was waiting for him. His mouth is cool and tastes clean. He lets Rantaro surge forward, and then, when he pulls away to gasp and reorientate, he waits patiently for Rantaro to kiss him again.</p><p> </p><p>After ploughing through the initial contact, Rantaro takes his time. He moves slowly, deliberately, against Korekiyo, tilting his face into a better position to take his lower lip into his mouth, the tip of his nose against Korekiyo’s skin. He moves his arms, feeling clumsy and new, his other hand against Korekiyo’s narrow waist. Korekiyo’s light grip is on the juncture of his neck. It’s so <em> easy</em>, like they’ve been doing it for ages, although Rantaro is on the ceiling with adrenaline. He coaxes Korekiyo’s mouth open and their tongues touch. The bass from the music downstairs rattles in his ears, but Korekiyo sighs faintly through his nose and then that’s all Rantaro can hear. </p><p> </p><p><em> Why now? How long? How much? </em> He can’t think. He wants to <em> grab</em>, but he won’t. He is lost in Korekiyo’s lips, held in place by his arms. Rantaro slides his hand from Korekiyo’s jaw up into his hair. It slips over his fingers like expensive bedsheets. He knots his fingers loosely in it. Korekiyo pulls on Rantaro’s hip to drag them closer together. </p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo’s history comes rushing back to him, all at once, and he feels ashamed. Of course Korekiyo has no problem separating sex and romance; he <em> has </em> to. They must be dirtied and darkened by the ghost of his sister. Rantaro has a responsibility now. He <em> knows </em> more than Korekiyo’s usual hookups. He has to make sure he isn’t pushing too hard.</p><p> </p><p>He breaks away, skin humming. Korekiyo’s eyes are so intense it makes his knees weak. He sighs shakily, swallows, retracts his hand from Korekiyo’s hair, drops it to his chest, uses the contact to push them apart a little.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry, I - “ He can’t think of a single thing to say. His mouth feels weird, his brain isn’t working properly. He can feel Korekiyo’s lungs expanding under his palm. He can feel the warmth of another body so close and it’s messing with his mind.</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo looks at him inquisitively. Rantaro can’t stop staring at his mouth.</p><p> </p><p>“I shouldn’t...you told me about...<em> you know</em>…and so I should have thought that - “</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo wraps his fingers around Rantaro’s wrist and moves his hand away from his chest. Standing this close, Rantaro has to tilt his head up slightly to meet his eyes. Korekiyo smirks, a tiny twitch of his lips, and Rantaro drinks in the sight he’s been denied.</p><p> </p><p>His other hand reaches for Rantaro’s chin and he lightly runs his thumb along Rantaro’s bottom lip. He shudders. He feels it in his <em> bones</em>. Korekiyo watches his response like he’s cataloguing it.</p><p> </p><p>“Is this what you want?” Korekiyo asks, his voice breathy and low. Rantaro nods dumbly, melting under Korekiyo’s touch. </p><p> </p><p>Still holding his wrist, Korekiyo guides him to sit on the edge of his bed. Rantaro goes obediently, scared to speak and diffuse the tension when it is building so deliciously. He stares up at Korekiyo, his mouth dry. For some reason, it surprises him that Korekiyo is so confident, standing over him, calling the shots, like Rantaro subconsciously expected to have to be careful and encouraging. Korekiyo needs no encouragement. He moves fluidly, straddling Rantaro, trapping him with a knee on either side of his hips, and kisses him again with assured enthusiasm. Rantaro is overwhelmed.</p><p> </p><p>He is so <em>close</em>, all of a sudden. It has been three years of observing from a few feet away, gauging emotion from just his eyes, watching him disappear into the unknown dimensions of his bedroom, wrapping himself in layer after layer of clothing and etiquette. Now he is warm and wet and breathing, in Rantaro’s lap, against his tongue, under his fingertips, the curtain of his hair sealing them off from the rest of the world. He’s a real human. His skin is smooth but not made of porcelain. His mouth - <em>oh god,</em> <em>Kiyo’s mouth</em> - tastes like alcohol and intrigue. </p><p> </p><p>Would it always have been this easy? If Rantaro had just <em> realised sooner</em>, could he have had this already? Maybe more than once? Would he sleep better? Would he be less obsessed with everything he does?</p><p> </p><p>The kiss becomes messy and demanding, Korekiyo holding his face, pressing their hips together, sliding his tongue against Rantaro’s in a way that makes him break out in goosebumps. Rantaro tugs Korekiyo’s shirt out from where it is tucked into his jeans and splays his palm against the warm skin of his back. The touch makes Korekiyo gasp against his lips, pull at his collar, press himself closer. He creeps into all of Rantaro’s senses, like smoke, until he’s everywhere. His hair is like water, his skin like satin, his grip so sure and full of purpose. </p><p> </p><p>He barely notices Korekiyo deftly unbuttoning the rest of his boiler suit, too preoccupied with his mouth, but reluctantly releases Korekiyo’s hair for the few seconds it takes to let himself be peeled out of the top half. Korekiyo’s cool fingertips dance across his collarbone. He pulls away from Rantaro’s lips to look at him. Rantaro’s world is dreamy and feverish, but Korekiyo’s gaze is pincer-sharp and focused. Rantaro feels the blush seep down his chest, following Korekiyo’s touch. Rantaro holds him by his hips, amazed that his hands aren’t shaking. </p><p> </p><p>“You are so beautiful. Sometimes I cannot stand it.” Says Korekiyo, seemingly only half-aware that he is speaking. He watches Rantaro’s skin prickle under his fingertip as he writes unintelligible words across his chest. Rantaro wonders if he can feel his heartbeat. He is suddenly thrilled that he had the initiative to lock the door. </p><p> </p><p>He lets himself be pushed onto his back across his mattress. He reaches his hands out to grab whatever he can. The hard line of Korekiyo’s jaw is like <em> art</em>, his hair tickles as it slips over Rantaro’s bare chest, his kiss is insistent, biting, drawing Rantaro further into his mouth, wiping his mind blank. He wonders idly how obviously aroused he is, but the way Korekiyo presses the warm line of his body against Rantaro’s makes him think there is no point in being coy.</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo tears his lips away with a gasp and immediately Rantaro thinks he has done something wrong, but instead of pulling away further he dips down to kiss Rantaro’s neck, sucking on his pulse point, withdrawing again, whispering against his skin.</p><p> </p><p>“Your party...I’m...your...you have guests…”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t care - oh god I <em> don’t care</em>…”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro arches into his touch, tilting his head back, screwing his eyes shut, not quite believing any of this is happening. He doesn’t want to rip Korekiyo’s pretty shirt but he will if he has to, but thankfully he gets the message and puts enough space between their chests for Rantaro to pull and twist at the buttons until he can tear it off. There’s a few moments where he wraps his arms around Korekiyo and just sort of <em> clings </em> to him, skin to skin, pressing his forehead against his sharp shoulder, feeling his labored breathing, Korekiyo’s teeth tugging at his earlobe, like they’re holding each other together at the seams. </p><p> </p><p>He hears someone stumble down the corridor towards Kaito’s room, hears a roar from the crowd below at a change of song, is surprised he can hear <em> anything </em> over his racing heart, the thundering in his ears. Korekiyo is pushing his boiler suit down so it pools at his ankles and he kicks it off. Naked except for his underwear, he imagines it is impossible to miss how much of an effect the situation is having on him. He’s boiling on the inside. He’ll bubble over.</p><p> </p><p>They just <em> look </em> at each other for a minute, Rantaro tracing the scars that thatch Korekiyo’s ribcage and abdomen. He’s so...<em>bare </em> . There’s so much skin all at once he doesn’t know where to look. His sharp collarbone rises and falls with his breathing, his delicate throat sweeping up in a long curve to his face, the skin of his pointed chin, the shadows thrown under his jaw and cheekbones, moulded from a single block of pale clay. Korekiyo looks at him like he’s the most fascinating specimen. Like he’s the final problem. It’s more than just curiosity, though. Korekiyo’s confidence belies experience. It’s indulgence as much as research. Rantaro didn’t expect being put under the microscope to feel so <em> personal</em>. He didn’t expect he would be totally fine being Korekiyo’s next passion project.</p><p> </p><p>He touches Rantaro over his underwear. Rantaro can feel the pads of his assured fingers through the material and makes an embarrassing choked sound, forces himself to resist the impulse to cant his hips up into Korekiyo’s hand, bites on his own lip hard enough to be just short of drawing blood. He trusts Korekiyo, of course - <em> how could he not? </em> - but there is something dark and crackling in the tension that fills Rantaro with anticipation, and he knows that after this there will be no going back. What happens tonight will change their friendship, built on years of mutual respect and common interests, not exactly <em> easy</em>, but fraught in a way that just reassures Rantaro that they adapt and overcome differences in order to stay close. Perhaps the undercurrent of tension that has always been present, holding Rantaro back from poking and prying, was <em>this </em> all along. The mutual understanding is too strong to take intimacy lightly. </p><p> </p><p>Usually in these situations Rantaro loses track of clothes and hands, but now every step feels distinct and bright, like the alcohol just <em> leaves </em> his bloodstream. After the night is over, he will remember the exact shape of Korekiyo’s hips when he shrugs off his jeans. He will remember breathing in the smell of him; incense and green tea and fresh paper, making his insides twist. He will remember the glint in his gold eyes when he pins Rantaro’s wrists to his duvet so he can discover where to kiss and bite to make him squirm. When he strips Rantaro of his underwear with no hesitation he will remember his touch so sudden and sure that Rantaro has to focus on the sounds downstairs to stop himself from coming before they’re even started. Korekiyo sits astride him, drinking in the sight of him like he can’t believe it either, touching him and <em> touching him </em> - his mouth wicked and thorough. Rantaro thinks he might die. He lies back and obeys Korekiyo’s whispered instructions of <em> keep still </em> or <em> stay there </em> or <em> not yet</em>. </p><p> </p><p>Once again he wants to say “<em> you are beautiful”. </em> He wants to give voice to the thought, but once again, like in their room in the mountain village, he can’t. He chokes on it. It seems pointless. It doesn’t mean what he wants it to, anyway. He <em> wants </em> to say <em> “you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and I have been everywhere. I could go mad looking at your lips now you have shown them to me. Your very essence is intoxicating </em>”. He can’t. It doesn’t fit. Korekiyo’s concept of beauty is something Rantaro has never understood, and so it is to him of all people that he cannot use that word properly. He groans his name instead, hissing it between clenched teeth, whispering it into his hair.</p><p> </p><p>And then everything else just...melts away. He thinks of kneeling behind him on the floor of the mountain shrine, feeling like he could sense the movement of Korekiyo’s thoughts through tremors in the air, thinking of god and raindrops, watching long dark hair slowly dry. He is intoxicated by the intimacy so long craved and so far denied. He struggles, even when asked, to stop himself putting his hands on Korekiyo, on his face and lower back and thighs and stomach, wanting to press him into his memory, hoping that it will then hit home that this is real and this is happening. </p><p> </p><p>With scrupulous intensity, Korekiyo unravels him. </p><p> </p><p>000</p><p> </p><p>He thinks Kokichi is talking but he zoned out ages ago. It’s not like he’s missing some deep personal revelation anyway. It’s more likely that he’s rambling on about robots or the other group of ‘much cooler’ friends that he definitely doesn’t have. Rantaro lets his coffee go cold.</p><p> </p><p>He supposes he should text Korekiyo - it’s been three days and any longer and it’s gonna get weird. Three days is a normal amount of time for them not to talk. Three days has the plausible deniability of being just long enough for Rantaro to have realised that he hasn’t checked up on him. </p><p> </p><p>Shuichi is looking at him so Rantaro schools his expression to look more realistically like he is listening to the conversation. Kaito has chimed in and it’s only a matter of time before it devolves into a squabble.</p><p> </p><p>When he woke up the morning after the party, a little hungover and with a pleasant buzz of apprehension, it hadn’t been a shock to find himself alone in his bed. Except for essentially knocking himself out after his breakdown a few weeks back, he’s never actually <em> seen </em> Korekiyo sleep. <em> Maybe he doesn’t</em>, he thinks wryly. </p><p> </p><p>He was kiss-bruised, blissful and a little sore that morning. He showered for almost an hour despite Keebo’s complaints through the bathroom door and considered that he should probably exercise more if sex was enough exertion to make his muscles ache. He washed the glitter from his face and stepped out into the new, cold morning with a pink, sensitive face and memories like popping candy under his skin.</p><p> </p><p>He played it cool, as ever, making himself breakfast. Shuichi gave him a <em> look </em> but said nothing. Keebo and Kaito seemed fairly oblivious and Rantaro thought his sleep-deprived, sex-muddled brain might actually get a day to process and recover in peace before the door of Shuichi’s bedroom slammed against its frame and Kokichi stumbled into the kitchen. </p><p> </p><p>“<em>Man</em>, I think I got like an hour of sleep or something.”</p><p> </p><p>“It was more like five hours. I was already in bed when you decided to <em> impose </em> yourself.” Said an admittedly tired-looking Shuichi.</p><p> </p><p>“I couldn’t hold back any longer, dearest. I simply <em> had </em> to have you.” Kokichi said, lacking his usual commitment. </p><p> </p><p>Shuichi rolled his eyes, blushing despite himself. He is so easy to fluster it’s no wonder he’s constantly on the receiving end of Kokichi’s teasing.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Speaking </em> of tension finally resolved…” Kokichi swivelled his head around the breakfast table to give Rantaro a pointed look and his good mood instantly deflated.</p><p> </p><p>“Huh?” Said Kaito, halfway through buttering his toast.</p><p> </p><p>Kokichi grinned menacingly, looking decidedly more awake, and leaned his head on his fist, pinning Rantaro where he sat.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I </em> saw Rantaro disappear from the party last night. He headed up to his room and never emerged. How very suspicious. <em> Especially </em> since ShinGucci was with him. Does anyone remember seeing Kiyo leave?”</p><p> </p><p>Keebo raised his eyebrows. Shuichi pressed his lips together. Kaito, ever the least subtle, gaped.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t.” Said Keebo.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, ‘cause he <em> didn’t</em>. He stayed the night, right? I mean. I assume he isn’t here now, but still, you guys finally did it, didn’t you?” His grating voice only made his words more irritating. Rantaro was possessed with the surprisingly real desire to punch him. “Was it the first time? Or is that why you have been disappearing to his apartment so much recently? Some anthropology action?”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro ignored him, but Kokichi is nothing if not persistent and no one seemed to have the energy to dissuade him, so Rantaro focused more on looking disinterested and aloof than letting him know how unwelcome his comments were. </p><p> </p><p>“Hey! Is he into weird stuff? It’s just the mask and everything makes me think he must be a bit of a freak. Did he tie you up? Did he make you tie <em> him </em> up? Does he like pain? Do <em> you </em> like pain? Does our most esteemed, dignified and enigmatic associate Kiyo even <em> have </em> a dick?! Did he make you call him ‘daddy’?!”</p><p> </p><p>“Shut up, Kokichi.” Rantaro snapped. Kaito was tactful for once.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah dude, what the hell, don’t be gross. You really think you’re gonna get answers out of him by being that annoying? Give the guy some privacy, jeez.”</p><p> </p><p>Kokichi retreated, turning his grin on Kaito. “Of course, Momota-my-love, you are right as always. I forget that you can be sensitive sometimes because everything else you say is so dumb. How about we talk about <em> your </em> night instead…”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro was too tired to humor them, and he could feel a headache coming on. Shuichi gave him a sympathetic smile as he left which somehow annoyed him more.</p><p> </p><p>And now, three days later, Kokichi is bored of that gossip and has moved on to other topics of discussion so Rantaro can finally actually <em> think </em> about it without having to be constantly on guard. It’s difficult to extricate his emotional reactions from the ghosts of physical sensation, however, and every time he tries he gets wonderfully lost in memories of touch and taste and then he has to think about something else quickly.</p><p> </p><p>He...<em> wants</em>. Once could never be enough, he knows that now. Rantaro has had more than his fair share of lovers, casual and romantic, and he knows he is probably biased because he’s been lowkey obsessed with the guy for months but it can’t just be his emotional investment that made that night so <em> good</em>. If he hadn’t recently spent so much time getting close to Korekiyo, probing into his soul, seeing him vulnerable and honest, would that still have been the best sex he’s ever had? It’s like Korekiyo’s study of humans has practical applications. It’s like he understands so much about how people work he just <em> knows </em> how to perfectly and passionately take them apart. Rantaro should have been prepared, he knows - they discussed Korekiyo’s sexual history and it seemed <em> thorough </em> - he just didn’t think...he couldn’t <em> imagine</em>…</p><p> </p><p>He sends him a text: “<em>Hi, I hope your project’s coming along alright. Wondered if you wanted to hang out some time this week?” </em></p><p> </p><p>With the year over, Rantaro is taking off again. Probably within the month. He wants to do natural disaster aid work, and is narrowing it down to a few different locations. There is a small, traitorous part of him that wants Korekiyo to come with him, if not for the full length of his trip then for a week or so. If he has plans of his own, Rantaro doesn’t want to leave for who-knows how long without getting the situation sorted.</p><p> </p><p><em> “I am deep in </em> <em> Mesoamerica. I shall likely emerge within a few days. Perhaps Friday would suit you?” </em></p><p> </p><p>The reply doesn’t come quickly, but it comes. Rantaro lets out a sigh and replies.</p><p> </p><p><em> “Friday is great. We could grab lunch? </em>”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Sounds delightful.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>000</p><p> </p><p>Well, if there is one thing Rantaro is very good at, it’s alleviating tension and dispelling awkwardness. Just because there is a bit more at stake this time around doesn’t mean it’ll be any different. </p><p> </p><p>He meets Korekiyo after his study session. When he emerges from the building and spots Rantaro, a bright look of intrigue settles on his face. Rantaro waves at him with one hand, the other balling up the sleeve of his favorite sweater. He has thus far stubbornly refused to address the extra half hour he put into getting ready today.</p><p> </p><p>“Rantaro, thank you for meeting me.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro scoffs. “Kiyo we're buddies, no need to <em> thank </em>me for waiting for you. C’mon I’m hungry.”</p><p> </p><p>They grab lunch and eat it sitting on a bench by the river. Being with Korekiyo in the flesh again naturally makes Rantaro think about his flesh. He knew this would be the case, so he came prepared with a mental list of topics to keep conversation flowing so his mind doesn’t wander off down more tempting avenues. The results are mixed. On the one hand he likes talking to Korekiyo and his input is, as ever, interesting, and it doesn’t feel forced. On the other hand, Korekiyo slips a piece of sushi under his mask and blinks at Rantaro, watching and listening to what he is saying, and Rantaro loses his train of thought, jumping instead to Korekiyo’s pretty mouth and soft lips and the velvet heat of his tongue and -</p><p> </p><p>“We should talk about the sex.” Rantaro says.</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo sighs and lowers his chopsticks, glancing out over the river. </p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I suppose we should.”</p><p> </p><p>“Unless you don’t want to. I don’t wanna make you feel uncomfortable.” Rantaro draws one leg up so his foot is on the bench, leaning his elbow on his bent knee. He watches Korekiyo for twitches and tremors but finds none.</p><p> </p><p>“No, no, I do not mind.” He says lightly, like it’s a chore he’d rather not perform, but he looks back at Rantaro. “Would you like me to pretend it didn’t happen in front of your friends?”</p><p> </p><p>Taken aback, he stammers a little. “Wh-what? No, no, nothing like that.” He starts to twist a lock of his hair around his fingers then stops himself. He doesn’t want to seem nervous.</p><p> </p><p>“People usually ask for discretion before anything else.” Says Korekiyo.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh...well, uh, my housemates all kind of know already. We sort of...disappeared off together. So Kokichi assumed and then told everyone else, obviously.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo breathes out a laugh. “Hm. Obviously. So what would you like to discuss, then?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh…” <em> What had he wanted to talk about? </em> “Oh, I just thought we should...you know, clear the air?”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo nods. Rantaro is usually a fan of his intense, analytical gaze, but right now he’d rather Korekiyo <em> stopped looking at him like that </em> when he was trying to be sensible.</p><p> </p><p>“So...um, how do you feel?”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo’s eyes are instantly amused and fond. “I feel good. I had a wonderful evening. I am sorry if I have embarrassed you in front of your housemates.”</p><p> </p><p>This isn’t what Rantaro wants to hear, but he isn’t sure why.</p><p> </p><p>“Ok. That’s good. ‘Good’ is good.”</p><p> </p><p>“How do you feel?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Devastated. Strung out. Ripped open.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“I feel good too. I don’t want things to be weird or tense, so I just…” He trails off. Korekiyo nods.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s a very mature approach. I can assure you I have no intention of making it ‘weird’. I’d like very much to continue our friendship. We can talk about it whenever you want.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro should have known that Korekiyo would be perfectly poised for this. He should have guessed that these polite, understanding and respectful sentiments would slip off his tongue as easily as anthropology. The two were linked, after all. Rantaro can’t forget that.</p><p> </p><p>It’s then that he knows what he wanted to hear, so he asks the question, boldly and with no consideration for his own safety.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you want to do it again?”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo’s eyebrows lift a little; a delicate show of surprise. </p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think that is a good idea.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro remains impassive. “Why not?”</p><p> </p><p>“Twice is a habit.”</p><p> </p><p>“And you don’t wanna make a habit of me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Habits are hard to break.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re such an <em> optimist</em>, Kiyo.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo sighs. It’s patronising. Rantaro bristles a little, but makes sure it doesn’t show, keeping his face even and open.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t sleep with the same person more than once.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro’s brow furrows. “This is news to me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, well, until recently we hadn’t discussed my sex life at great length.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why not? Sleep with the same person, that is.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo swallows. He presses the plastic lid back onto his half-finished tray of sushi and moves it to one side.</p><p> </p><p>“It risks emotional entanglements.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro snorts, can’t stop the short burst of laughter. “Jeez, Kiyo, it’s just sex. No need to be so particular about it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I have to be particular about it.” His voice is hard and his eyes are cold. Rantaro drops his smile and nods, abashed.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, of course. Sorry. I forgot.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo blinks the ice away. “It is not your fault. None of your observations have been peculiar. It is me who is unusual. I should have explained beforehand.”</p><p> </p><p>“That would have killed the mood.” He is rewarded for his attempt at lightheartedness with a glitter of amusement in Korekiyo’s eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“It would mean you would have known where you stood. That would have been the kinder thing to do.”</p><p> </p><p>“It wouldn’t have changed anything: knowing, I mean. I still would have done it.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo gives him a soft, curious look and balls his gloved hands up on his knees.</p><p> </p><p>“I usually explain it to people, in some way or another, but I...lost myself a little, I confess. I don't usually sleep with my friends.” He looks from his knees to the horizon. The watery sun lights flickering candles in the shiny strands of his hair. “I wanted you. Badly. I have for a while. It was selfish of me, knowing how I approach these things, to jeopardize our friendship like that. But when you looked at me downstairs, when you <em>kept</em> <em>looking</em>, I knew I could have you if I tried. And I wasn’t a big enough person to try and fight that. I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro is blushing, he <em> knows </em> he is blushing, but he isn’t one to <em> swoon </em> and he isn’t one to be rattled that easily.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m an adult, Kiyo, I don’t need your apologies. You didn’t whisk me away under false pretences and <em> have your way </em>with me, I consented. It was mutual. You have nothing to feel guilty about and I’m not asking for you to say sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo looks back at his hands on his knees, eases the tension out of them. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Rantaro scoffs and rolls his eyes. “And I’m sorry for <em> that </em> too.” Says Korekiyo. Rantaro would berate him, except he thinks he means it earnestly.</p><p> </p><p>After a moment of silence, awkward angry tension diffusing, Rantaro speaks softly.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t you think we are already ‘emotionally entangled’, Kiyo?”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo holds his gaze, then slides his eyes down Rantaro’s neck and focuses on the pendant of one of his necklaces. He addresses this spot instead.</p><p> </p><p>“Perhaps.”</p><p> </p><p>“...So?”</p><p> </p><p>“So once was a lapse in my judgement, a weakness that I can’t afford to repeat.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m a lapse in your judgement? That makes me feel <em> soooo </em> special, Kiyo.” He drawls sarcastically. </p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t mean it to sound crass, but if I was obeying my own rules, I would have resisted.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well you didn’t, and now we’re here, all <em> tangled</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Which is why I have to draw the line now before I - “</p><p> </p><p>“Before you what?” Rantaro snaps. Korekiyo looks relatively composed, but his breathing is a little heavier, his brow a little lower. “Before you accidentally fuck me again? Before we end up back in bed and once more you forget to tell me in clinical detail the parameters of the <em> pleasure of your company?!” </em></p><p> </p><p>“Rantaro, you are being unfair. I am trying to explain, and you are mocking me for it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry if I take the personal things you say about me personally.”</p><p> </p><p>“It isn’t <em> you</em>, don’t you see?” Korekiyo hisses. He has turned his body towards Rantaro’s. His hand grips the back of the bench, a few inches away from his own. Rantaro curses himself for being sort of turned on. “I need to define these types of encounters in order to have any control over the way my brain reacts to them. If I let emotions get involved, there’s no telling what She will do. I compartmentalise as a way of surviving. I have no idea how I will react to getting <em> romantically </em> involved with someone.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who said anything about <em> romance?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“That is where it leads, Rantaro. That is where it always leads. I have studied humans enough to know this. If we continued sleeping together, do you think you could remain entirely unattached, with exclusively platonic feelings for me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you think <em> you </em> could?”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo swallows like he is preparing himself. With stoney conviction he says “Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>It hurts a little, Rantaro won’t deny that, but he realises that he only meant to get on level ground with Korekiyo, and instead he has made him upset. And Korekiyo has made him upset. He’s still not sure what he wants, but it definitely isn’t that. </p><p> </p><p>He sighs and looks away, dropping his leg down to the floor. “I’m sorry, Kiyo. I didn’t mean to get into a fight with you, I guess I’m just tender still. I should have thought about the implications for you, what with all the stuff you have to deal with. It was insensitive of me to make you feel guilty for a coping mechanism.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo deflates next to him. “I should have told you. I don’t care if you think you didn’t need it, it was selfish of me not to and I apologise. I didn’t consider your feelings.”</p><p> </p><p>“I forgive you.” He says, because of course he does. “And I wasn’t asking you to have sex with me again, I just bristled at the closed door, I guess. There’s no hard feelings, I swear. I respect your boundaries.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p> </p><p>It’s tense, but Rantaro hopes they have said what needs to be said.</p><p> </p><p>“So...would you still like to be friends?” Korekiyo asks, tentatively, like he is terrified of the answer. Rantaro is flooded with affection; irritating and potent.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, of course, you weirdo. This isn’t my first rodeo either, and I only brought it up because it’s important to me that we <em> stay </em> friends.”</p><p> </p><p>Korekiyo maybe-smiles. “Oh, ok...good. Thank you. I’d like that.”</p><p> </p><p>They don’t touch the topic again for the rest of the day, but Rantaro thinks about it and he’s fairly certain Korekiyo does the same. When the sun begins to set, Korekiyo excuses himself to get back to his studies and Rantaro wanders around town for a bit.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> A blip. That’s all it was. Something in the sake, probably.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>As difficult as adjusting back to just-friends is going to be, he doesn’t find the idea of it daunting. His friendship with Korekiyo is more important than a single night anyway, he’d choose it over almost anything. He can’t <em> make </em> Korekiyo change his mind. He doesn’t want to <em> make </em> him do anything. <em> That night </em> is a torturous anomaly, but despite how difficult it will be to forget, Rantaro is still glad it happened; that, just for a night, he achieved the level of intimacy with Korekiyo that he had been craving. He saw his lips and touched his skin. He’ll keep it close like a precious artefact and things will hopefully just go back to normal.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I can't write smut to save my life, so forgive me for being coy. Let me know what you think xx</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I totally lied! I tried finishing this in one chapter and it was waaaaayyy too long, so you’ll get final chapter 7 next week once I’ve finished it. I got super carried away, I apologise. In the meantime have some pining and Kokichi being annoying.</p>
<p>Thank you SO much for your kind words?? Every review made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, seriously, thank you for taking the time to let me know what you think.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When his alarm rings he rushes to switch it off, but Mei stirs anyway. It’s warm and comfortable in bed and he’s spent the first hour of his day scrolling through social media and idly looking at plane tickets, but now she wakes up slowly next to him and he thinks about the next steps of getting up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Mnunm.” She says. It might have been ‘morning’ before his pillow smothered it. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Morning.” Says Rantaro with a grin. Her long black hair is messy. He’d like to brush it, he thinks, but he doesn’t have time for that. He slides out of bed and picks through the assortment of clothes on the floor to find his underwear. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He met Mei earlier in the year at a bar, and her number has been gathering dust in his contacts since their one-night-stand. But when he ran into her the week before, he realised her energy was refreshing, and they’ve had a few nights together since. She’s low maintenance and sexually adventurous and he enjoys himself. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are my tights ripped?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Uhh…” He picks up the aforementioned item. “Nope. All good.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He hands them to her as she groans.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m never drinking again.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You said that last week.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I mean it this time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rantaro, the sh-” Says Kaito, loudly and unexpectedly, barging into Rantaro’s bedroom.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> I always forget to lock that damn door when it counts</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh, hi! Nice to see you again, uh...Maya?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Mei.” Says Mei. She looks relaxed and cool in Rantaro’s sheets, makeup sex-smudged.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah, Mei! Right! Nice to see ya!” <em> Why hasn’t he left?! </em> “Rantaro, boiler’s broken. They’re fixing it today so it should be sorted by this evening if you can wait for a shower.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro wrinkles his nose. “Not sure I can.” Mei snorts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m gonna shower at the gym, if you wanna come?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kaito goes to the gym a lot, but seems to spend most of the time drinking protein shakes, splashing around in the pool and using the shower, as opposed to <em> actually exercising</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nah, I’ll ask Kiyo.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good plan!” Kaito beams and leaves, slamming the door behind him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sorry about that.” Says Rantaro, but Mei looks endeared.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Your housemates are weird.” She laughs. She gets dressed and Rantaro doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he watches her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll shower at my <em> own </em> place, then.” She says. He puts on his favorite sweater and walks her down to the door.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her usually arrogant and teasing demeanor shifts for a second as she kisses him sweetly on the doorstep.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Call me.” She says, she <em>demands</em>, and then leaves before Rantaro can say anything.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He goes to get dressed and make himself look presentable, hoping he doesn’t encounter Kaito in the corridor and have to answer his questions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He shows up at Korekiyo’s apartment building after lunch, as agreed. This month’s order of books has arrived and Rantaro is here to help, as is customary.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re late.” Says Korekiyo absently, already flicking through one of the books, an open cardboard box on the floor before him. He shoots Rantaro a quick, amiable glance and returns to the pages. Rantaro scans him for signs of stress or discord, but finds none. He does this every time they meet up now, but Korekiyo doesn’t appear to have suffered any major episodes since the last one.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sorry, I burnt lunch. I’m gonna delay our day even further with my next request.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Our boiler is broken. I wondered if I could shower here? Just today.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo performs his usual visual appraisal and then shrugs elegantly. “Of course. But afterwards. No point getting clean only to exert yourself again.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good point.” Says Rantaro, and gets to work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are scrolls amongst the shipment, and enough dust to make Rantaro sneeze. They sort in comfortable silence, categorising and then repackaging last month’s into the same boxes. Rantaro feels...at ease. Surprisingly so. It was initially a bit difficult to return to normal with Korekiyo, and when they’re apart Rantaro tries his hardest not to think about him, but when they’re together, hanging out like they always have, a strange sort of peace descends, like finally scratching an itch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He is still far too aware of every glance he throws Korekiyo’s way. Every time he looks at him, something he wouldn’t consider before, he feels it, resents it for a second, and then accepts it as his fault. Korekiyo is nice to look at. People look at him all the time. Korekiyo knows that, by inviting Rantaro here, he will be looking at him. There is nothing shameful or nefarious in that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once the organising is done, he heads for the bathroom. There is a shower, but once he sees the bathtub he can’t resist.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo laughs a little. “Feel free. There are salts and foams under the sink; help yourself.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He does. He tries to concoct something meaningful out of the herbs and flowers on offer, chamomile and jasmine and lemongrass, something about relaxing, but after the bath is full the scents just meld into one and the air is heavy with steam. He submerges himself, the tension easing from his muscles, his frame going slack. There is only a shower at home; he hasn’t had a bath in <em> ages</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A pearly mixture of bath foams floats on the surface. Rantaro watches the tidemark gather in a ring around each knee where they poke out from the water. He dips his mouth under, hovering there between above and below, breathing through his nose, feeling warm water everywhere. He thinks about sailboats and blinking eyes, about ancient parchment dropped in a puddle, its ink bleeding out, staining the water grey, and then black. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He washes himself thoroughly and emerges, warm and dripping, into the air of Korekiyo’s pristine bathroom. He towel dries his hair and considers the urgency of the need to dye his roots.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he steps back into the living room, Korekiyo has stacked away the boxes. He left his bag by the door, and rummages through it now to get his change of clothes. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He glances at Korekiyo to see if he’s watching him, still wet, towel around his hips. He is, but with an interest that is typically detached. Rantaro retreats to the bathroom to get dressed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo lights some incense and puts on some music. It’s low-fi and ambient. He has already taken out a bottle of sake and two glasses. Rantaro puts his rings back on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How do you feel?” Korekiyo asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Refreshed. Relaxed. Rejuvenated.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He laughs his cold laugh. “Please, use my bath any time you need a reset.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thanks, dude.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo pours them a cup of sake each. It bursts electric and icy on his tongue. He swallows it and feels his stomach sparkle.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you for another month.” Korekiyo toasts him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s the highlight of my month.” Rantaro says, joking, but Korekiyo looks happy nevertheless.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo brushes the hair from his face as they move to the couch. Rantaro replies semi-dismissively to a text from Mei.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Can I braid your hair?” He asks, without thinking.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s eyes widen, then his face relaxes. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I used to braid my sisters’ hair. I like it. You have lovely hair. I’d like to braid it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo thinks for a moment, his head tilted slightly to one side, then shrugs; an elegant roll of his shoulders.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Very well.” He says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro feels a rush of blood in his head. Korekiyo slithers off the couch and sits crossed-legged on the floor in front of Rantaro. He tosses his hair over his shoulder and it falls down to his hips, glossy and dark. Rantaro’s mouth goes dry. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You said you were thinking about Kenya?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah. I have a contact there from a few years back, who says they need extra help this time of year...”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He rattles off his research to Korekiyo, who listens with the occasional “hm”. Korekiyo’s hair is heavy and soft. He threads his fingers through the strands at his left temple and marvels at how it obeys him, splitting it easily into three equal strands and weaving them together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The distribution of supplies means it is difficult to assure the authorities don’t seize control of at least half of it…” Rantaro talks without thinking. The smell of Korekiyo’s hair is heady and pleasant. He weaves another braid from his opposite temple, then plaits the two together at the back. He can feel his own hair drying at the base of his neck. He rakes his nails gently against Korekiyo’s scalp and Korekiyo tilts his head back into Rantaro’s hands. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>They swap anecdotes idly as Rantaro weaves his hair into an elaborate plait. He focuses on what he’s saying and what he’s doing and not the innate intimacy of the situation. Korekiyo leans his forearm on his knee and examines his nails, seemingly unmoved.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You did this for your sisters?” Korekiyo asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes.” Says Rantaro.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“They are lucky to have an older brother like you.” Says Korekiyo, easily, slightly devastating, tilting his head so Rantaro can collect the hair against the nape of his neck. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah. I love them in their entirety.” Says Rantaro.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Their entirety?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah. Like, I’d forgive them anything. Their safety is my priority.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You would forgive them anything?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah. Like they could do anything, however despicable, and I’d probably take their side.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Your love for them outweighs your moral judgement?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, I guess.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Fascinating. A quirk of biology I suppose. To pardon those closest to you of any ethical crime.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not something logical that I can control. It’s always been like that. It’s innate, yeah, like in my DNA or something.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo bows his head. A feeling in Rantaro swells, an overwhelming yearning, not for Korekiyo, but as if he <em> were </em> Korekiyo. He wishes someone had been there to look after him. He wishes someone could have loved him purely, without clauses and conditions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> She didn’t love him. Whatever the fuck was going on there, it wasn’t love. It was putrid. It was poisonous. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He finishes plaiting Korekiyo’s hair and admires his handiwork. It’s intricate and pretty. He pulls Korekiyo towards him by his shoulders and rests his chin on the top of his head, wrapping his arms across his chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How does it look?” Asks Korekiyo. His voice is sweet and mellow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Lovely. Your hair is so gorgeous, I couldn’t resist.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo laughs lightly, moves away to stand in front of the mirror, admires his reflection.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Wonderful. You have a deft touch.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro feels the innuendo on the tip of his tongue, but bites it back in an uncharacteristic display of restraint. Korekiyo pours them another glass of sake each and checks the time on his phone. The lock screen catches Rantaro’s attention.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah!” He laughs, a little delighted, snatching the phone from Korekiyo and smiling at his own face looking back at him. It is the picture of the two of them in front of the waterfall that Kuro took. Something dangerous and sticky fills his chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It is a nice picture.” Korekiyo explains, and doesn’t even have the decency to look a little sheepish. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> Scared of emotional entanglement, my ass</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have it on my wall.” Says Rantaro. It’s stuck next to a truly cursed picture of Keebo and Kokichi in the dark with the flash on, over-exposed and motion-blurred, ugly but hilarious. Sometimes when Rantaro looks at it, it reminds him of how Korekiyo sometimes appears to inhabit an entirely different world to the rest of his friends.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The photo was taken in a pocket of time that exists in a separate corner of Rantaro’s mind. It felt like a dream, like a book he read rather than a trip he actually took. Korekiyo looks at it several times every day, and remembers. Rantaro smiles at the realisation, and Korekiyo’s eyes get stuck on it. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s been sleeping with Mei as a distraction; this he knows and can finally admit as the second glass of sake slips down. They have a certain unspoken understanding, and he likes her cockiness and her elasticity, her loud laughter and soft, sweet body. But now, he sees the difference; the brutal, beautiful distinction that he has been avoiding: there is Korekiyo, and then there is everybody else.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now, sitting on the floor, his back against the couch, incense smoke drifting before his eyes, bath-clean and relaxed, talking about music, the ebb and flow of his thoughts softly breaks the boundary of self-preservation, and he thinks about kissing Korekiyo again. He can picture his lips, moving under fabric, forming shapes and sounds, pulling into a smile. He imagines getting closer and tugging down his mask, the rush of power and affection as potent as the first time, and pressing their mouths together, like two magnets clicking into place. It takes virtually no effort to conjure Korekiyo’s taste, sitting dormant and threatening on the back of his tongue ever since it first touched there. To be squeezed into his space again, sharing air, feeling their matching pulses race, makes the sake in his stomach feel like lava. He wants to wrap himself around Korekiyo like ivy. He wants to bite the skin beneath his ear. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How is your bedroom looking?” He asks, coercing his tongue back into speech.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Much better.” Says Korekiyo. “I have been...remarkably <em>well</em> since.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m glad.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo, made of paper, reinforced with paint and plaster to make it harder for someone to punch through him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He realises they have been looking at each other in silence. Rantaro fondly and Korekiyo with something like sadness. It’s too much. Sometimes it is fine. Sometimes it is good and natural and easy. Sometimes it is not enough. Sometimes it is too much.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro leaves the apartment shortly after, and Korekiyo doesn’t make much of an attempt to stop him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He books flights to Kenya a month in advance. He’ll stay there for most of summer. All of his housemates have at least another year of college, and he’s decided to stay with them in the house and look for a job. It is surprisingly anticlimactic to graduate. He doesn’t even intend on going to the ceremony. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Things are winding down. It’s palpable. His friends will go elsewhere for summer; their parents’, or on vacation, leaving the city even if it’s just for a few weeks. The nights get shorter and the days get warmer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro, his housemates and a few friends amble down to the park with dinner and booze in their bags and stretch themselves out on a grassy hill, looking out over the city, bathed in evening light. Kaede made enough buns for a party twice their size. Keebo dutifully hands out cardboard cups of sweet tea. Miu brings a cooler full of alcohol that miraculously doubles as a speaker system, and they get pleasantly drunk to the beat of whatever weird music she puts on. Gonta arrives an hour later, from the <em> bushes </em> no less, twigs in his hair and a glitter in his eyes, having been sidetracked by a cricket.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kokichi and Kaito have been arguing less. Instead, Kokichi teases Kaito in the most harmless and childish ways he can and Kaito just ruffles his hair until he shuts up. Kokichi’s babbling never means anything good, and Rantaro notes with a certain warmth and pity that Kokichi now looks at Kaito the way Maki and Shuichi do; from under irritated eyebrows and with something like begrudging wonder. He tucks himself under the loose sleeve of Kaito’s coat when evening falls, poking and prodding, taking Kaito’s good-natured laughter as a challenge and then, when Kaito dozes off, he draws glasses and whiskers on his face with a marker pen.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mei drops by. She wanted to hang out and Rantaro told her where he was. She takes a beer from Miu’s cooler and drops down next to Rantaro, bumping their shoulders together in greeting. They chat for a bit, light and easy, and watch Kaede, Gonta, Shuichi, and Keebo tangle their limbs together on the Twister mat, while Ryoma spins and calls out colors. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“If I asked you on a date, you’d say no, right?” Mei says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro feels shame line his throat. He tries for a smile and hopes he doesn’t look pitying. Mei is so cool. She’s cool and interesting and <em> hot</em>. He’d totally date her. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> Except</em>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I...I’m sorry, Mei. I can’t right now. I’m not sure why myself, I’m just not in the right place. You deserve someone’s full attention, and I’m such a drifter it’s embarrassing.” He looks at her and speaks honestly. “You’re so cool, though. I really like you. I just...don’t wanna disappoint you, and I know I will.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mei smiles and nods, turning her attention back to the game of Twister just in time for Keebo to collapse on a very winded Shuichi. Miu howls with laughter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I thought you’d say something like that. That’s what dudes normally say when they don’t wanna commit, but in your case I believe it.” She looks at him. “You’re a nice guy, Rantaro, like a <em> genuine </em> nice guy. Thanks for being honest.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’d like to hang out though, if you want to. No sleeping together or anything. I just...I like you. I think we’d be really good friends.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mei smirks ironically and laughs a little. “Yeah. Yeah, we would be. Alright, let’s see how it goes, then.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She stays for the evening, which is nice. Rantaro isn’t hungry but after four beers decides to give Kokichi a piggyback and <em> then </em> race him at rolling down the hill, which ends in him barely managing to keep down what little is in his stomach. Kaede plays with Maki’s hair and for once, the latter looks relaxed, leaning into Kaede’s chest, watching Miu and Keebo dance. Lethargy takes over once the sun sets and they all sit to watch it. When it gets darker, Rantaro shares a joint with Mei and Ryoma, talking about summer plans and the state of the world. Behind them, Kaito lies on his coat, pointing up at the stars as they slowly appear in the sky, Shuichi curled against one side of him and Kokichi against the other. Gonta has his knees tucked under his chin and is looking up at the sky as well, hanging off Kaito’s every word. Rantaro wonders if he’s noticed the pen on his face. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The air fills with the sound of insects and Rantaro lies on the grass, letting the blades prickle the back of his neck. Kaede joins him and they talk about her philharmonic scholarship. When she shivers, he throws her his sweater.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro has a month before he leaves for Africa. A month to figure out what’s happening in his head to make him feel like he’s walking on Cloud 9 and free falling to earth all at once. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo used to catalogue in silence. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>This isn’t their cafe. Rantaro thinks it would be nice if they <em> had </em> a cafe, somewhere regular to hang out like in American movies, but Korekiyo is curious and he himself gets bored easily, and so they move around, vaguely orbiting campus like satellites with their own gravity field. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo used to run down the list on his tablet and make notes in one of his dozens of notebooks without saying a word. Rantaro pictures his lips moving behind his mask as he reads. His bright eyes flick iridescent like dragonfly wings as they scan the words with practised speed. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He used to be silent because Rantaro would pretend to study, and he didn’t want to disturb him. Korekiyo might be lost in his own world a lot of the time, his mind whirring like clockwork and his face impassive, but he is considerate of others, and has always been considerate of Rantaro. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now, after two years of this routine, he reads aloud as he catalogues. Albeit quietly. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro no longer needs to pretend to be immersed in his own reading, since he isn’t studying anymore, and instead dips in and out of his books and picks up on anything Korekiyo mutters that catches his interest. It’s a surprisingly efficient way to get information to stick in his brain. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s muttering is soothing. His strange way of talking, his soft voice, the almost sinister interest in its tone that sets many on edge, all adds to the haze that descends on Rantaro after he finishes his tea and watches raindrops chase each other down the steamy windowpane. He rubs the edge of a page of his journal and thinks for some reason of Hong Kong; the tunnels and alleys, the smog, the electricity bouncing off people. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo uses a stylus for his tablet. The screen doesn’t recognise his touch through the bandages covering his fingers. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He is wearing a burgundy shirt; loose-fitting, buttoned from his clavicle. There is a small symbol wrought in platinum hanging from his left ear - an experiment he’d said; a talisman of some sort. He has the faintest smudge of eyeliner on and his thin eyebrows are furrowed in concentration. He shakes his head and crosses out a word he was writing. From upside down Rantaro cannot tell if it is “entrance” or “mouth”. He has a portion of his hair tied back loosely. Rantaro wonders if he dressed himself today thinking about meeting Rantaro. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He is thinking, Rantaro knows. He is minorly frustrated by something: he tugs on the zip of his mask. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He catches Rantaro staring at him. From the way his brow quirks and his eyes glitter, Rantaro knows he is smirking at him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Something the matter?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nope.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He goes easily back to his work. He holds his pen like it’s a quill and treats his tablet with a vague distrust that you wouldn’t expect one to have towards a device they use every day. He has let his tea go cold. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro is in love with him. It slips into his mind like the sun over the horizon, making itself suddenly, quietly known. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He draws in a breath that is steadier than he expected. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo hasn’t noticed. He is back to muttering. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Huh. Ok.  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is like…it is like he’s found buried treasure, but he’s not sure what to do with it. His lungs fill with fucking butterflies. He thinks his pupils must swell an inch at least. He feels it leak out of every pore. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Or maybe he’s just sweating. <em> Ok, Amami, keep it together. It’s no big deal.  </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is a big deal. It’s big enough to be pushing at his skin from the inside. Rantaro knows a fair bit about love. He’s been in love before. He knows what it feels like and he knows its power. Korekiyo does not do romance. Korekiyo does not date, or crush, or woo, or fawn. Korekiyo has sex as part of his studies more than anything else. This was the worst possible outcome, the very thing Korekiyo tried to safeguard against, his whole reason for this awkward return to a friendship that now feels slightly incomplete. He’d examined the possibility, swallowed back his urges, done what he could to prevent it, and it had happened anyway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro loves him still, loves him hard, loves him <em> anyway</em>. He loves his ancient soul and archaic speech. He loves his inhuman beauty and unnerving attention. He loves his piercing focus and breathless wonder, loves his curiosity and his intelligence, loves his quiet wit and subtle selflessness, loves his broken and battered brain, his shy and shredded heart. He loves his weirdness, his creepiness, his lack of shame and lack of self-consciousness. He loves his book-filled apartment, his constantly covered mouth, his frail and elegant form. He loves the thought of his skin against his tongue, of his hair in his fist, of his body in his body. He loves his bedroom full of eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> Fuck</em>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> I wonder how he thinks of me, </em> Rantaro thinks immediately. <em> Did he see this coming a mile off, then? Did I blush too deeply or beg too convincingly? Did he feel my heart race and know? Am I so human that I cannot fight my base instincts or is he so inhuman that the thought would never seriously occur to him?  </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not in love. Never in love. Korekiyo wears bandages and a mask almost all of the time. He does not like to be touched much, and what vulnerability he chooses to show is calculated and restrained. He is self-tailored to resist the pull of emotions. He has built up an immunity to the poison of it. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro has always had a thing for mystery and adventure. He never could stop himself before reaching the end of a treacherous path. His damn mind, always overworked, always underthinking, pushing him forward into the unknown, understanding that what is hidden there is dangerous but going anyway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He feels...guilty. Suddenly guilty. Korekiyo trusted him with his secret history, showing him its walls and ceiling, closing the door firmly behind them, and Rantaro, despite Korekiyo’s express wishes, has insinuated himself inside. Korekiyo has drawn a line and Rantaro has closed his eyes and stepped over it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you alright?” Korekiyo sounds concerned. Genuinely concerned. Rantaro tries to remain phlegmatic, despite the pounding of his heart. He’s worried it’s shaking the table.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah.” He says, praying that whatever is filling his chest doesn’t spill out of his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo locks his tablet and flicks his notebook shut. His movements are easy and he sighs. He is acting normal. It is so odd for him to be acting normal when the world stopped spinning for a second.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I shall miss you when you go.” He says, putting his things away. For want of something to do with his hands, Rantaro picks up a napkin and starts folding it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah? Why don’t you come with me?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> Why did you say that you idiot?! Are you trying to make this harder?! </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kenya?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Uh huh.” Rantaro doesn’t look at him, trying to play it off casually.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hmm. An interesting suggestion.” Korekiyo fiddles with his earring, glancing out of the window. He looks so pretty in profile that Rantaro swallows cartoonishly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No pressure or anything, just figured you invited me on your last trip and we were pretty good travel buddies. Thought I’d return the offer.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have never been to Kenya.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My contact there would be glad to have you, I’m sure. There’s lots to see and loads of people to meet, but a lot of work to do as well.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s eyes glitter. His love of people rears its head almost visibly. His shoulders quiver a little.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It sounds...<em> fascinating… </em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It is. I mean, it would be.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I will...consider it, if that is alright? You may retract your offer at any time. I’m not entirely convinced you aren’t just being nice.” He says dryly. Rantaro laughs. He isn’t sure how he manages to actually <em> laugh</em>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thanks for the get-out-of-jail-free card. I’m going next month, on the 26th, so try and decide before then. You shouldn’t have much trouble getting a plane ticket.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo nods. “Thank you, Rantaro. I mean it. It was rewarding; travelling with a friend.” He leans his chin on the heel of his hand and blinks benignly at Rantaro. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Korekiyo, after an argument over the bill that lasted several minutes, goes to pay at the register, Rantaro gets some time alone to lament what an absolutely hopeless case he is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ve been real weird recently. Are you on drugs again?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kokichi has invited himself into Rantaro’s bedroom and knocked all of his clean laundry off the end of his bed so he can sit there. Rantaro’s at his desk, doing admin for his upcoming trip, and tries to smother his sigh.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why does everyone think I’ve had a drug problem at some point?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rich boy with weird-colored hair, more money than sense, kinda creative and endlessly bored; it’s a fair assumption.” Kokichi says. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Right, well, I’m not. But thanks for your concern, I guess?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kokichi lies with his feet against the wall and his head dangling off the edge of the mattress. His too-big denim shorts are belted tightly over Kaito’s Star Wars t-shirt. Rantaro can feel his wide eyes on him for a few precious moments of silence as he types out an email. Kokichi sighs. It comes out like a scoff.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Alright, what’s up?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro glances at him. Strings of purple hair brush the carpet. His small mouth is set in an unusually firm line.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Huh? Nothing.” Rantaro says, tilting his head to try and be more level with Kokichi’s.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Pfff. Yeah, ‘cause you’re a splendid actor and I can’t <em> always </em> tell when someone’s lying.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro shrugs and goes back to his email. He really doesn’t want to talk to someone about this, and if he <em> had </em> to, he’d pick someone like Shuichi or Kaede. Kokichi would probably be last on his list. Besides, overthinking interpersonal relationships is kind of paranoid, and he has a reputation to uphold.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>C’moooon </em> , Rantaro dear, <em> confide </em> in me! Aren’t we <em> best friends?” </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro snorts. “Since when?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kokichi maybe-feigns offence. “We’re <em> not?!</em> You wound me, Rantaro, you really do.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kokichi, I’ll be the first to admit I’ll miss your antics over summer, but I’m kinda in the middle of something, so…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Tell me, Rantaro. I’m not going anywhere until we have an honest heart-to-heart, best friend to best friend.” He says, semi-serious, semi-malicious. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re not great at sensitivity, Kokichi, and you’ve proven yourself to be loose-lipped with people’s personal matters. Of course we’re friends, I just…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You don’t trust me?” He sounds...actually a little hurt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re a liar. Famously.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Uh-huh, but not about important stuff.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That’s true. For all of his mischief and mayhem, Kokichi rarely puts his foot in it. He isn’t <em> evil</em>. Rantaro considers for the first time that Kokichi must have a surprisingly good instinct for people to have avoided making mistakes like that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s Kiyo, right?” Says Kokichi, like he wants to prove Rantaro correct.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What makes you think there’s something wrong?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re...quiet. It’s kinda gross sometimes, but you’re so <em> positive</em>, Amami. Like, always <em> smiling </em> and being <em> friendly </em> and <em> helping others</em>,” He says with distaste, “So when you spend all your time alone in your room and stuck in your own head it’s kinda obvious to anyone with a brain that something’s up.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro frowns over his shoulder, but he can’t fight a small smile.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re so good at pretending to be an asshole, this compassion almost seems like a lie…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kokichi grins, squeezing his eyes shut. “Maybe it is! Who knows? Either way it’s working; <em> you’re </em> trying to change the subject!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What do you want from me?” He rolls his eyes and swivels around on his desk chair, fixing Kokichi with an irritated stare and a raised eyebrow. Kokichi rolls over and props his chin on his hands, kicking his legs in the air.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I wanna <em> talk</em>. That’s what friends do, right? If there’s something wrong, I wanna <em> heeelp, </em> if there’s something on your mind, I wanna <em> unburden </em> youuu!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro scoffs. “Thank you, but I’m really ok. I appreciate the offer though.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“If no one believes anything I say, surely you can trust me with your secrets?” He draws out the last ‘s’ like a snake. He looks more honest, but Rantaro knows how good he is at schooling his face. “No one would believe me <em> even if </em> I told them, which I won’t.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My problems aren’t that interesting.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll decide that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is that what you’re doing? Amusing yourself?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m your friend, Rantaro, I wanna help.” Reiterates Kokichi, stony and serious. Rantaro sighs again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, of course. Sorry.” His good nature wins out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is it your brain or your heart?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Huh?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’s the trouble? Are you fucked up here,” he taps his own head, “Or down here?” He splays his hand across his chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro laughs without humor. “Pft. Both.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So it <em> is </em> Kiyo.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I like to think my skin is pretty thick, and I’m kind of used to you at this point, but I swear to god Kokichi if you make fun of me I’m gonna start crying and that won’t be fun for <em> either </em> of us.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kokichi rolls his eyes. “I’m not <em> gonna</em>, jeez. I’m gonna give you advice, obviously.” He squirms into a sitting position and crosses his legs underneath him, nodding encouragingly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You? <em> You’re </em> gonna give me advice?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Uh-huh. I am an expert in romance, after all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro has a brief but vivid flashback of Kokichi yanking on his hair and plundering his mouth with his tongue and tries not to shudder visibly. He does have a surprising amount of <em> success </em> considering his tactics...or maybe that’s just a lie too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’s the problem, my friend? Arguing over the color scheme for the wedding?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> I wish</em>, Rantaro thinks, before realising how absurd that is. “No, the opposite. Kiyo doesn't like me like that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Huh? Really? But you...spend all your time together?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, yeah, we’re friends, but he doesn’t want anything else.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Did you <em> not </em> fuck at the party then?!” Kokichi sounds genuinely horrified at the prospect.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, we did, but when we talked about it he said he can’t risk a repeat because he’s worried that I’ll catch feelings and he’ll feel guilty for <em> using </em> me when he has no intention of it going anywhere other than essentially friends with benefits.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ah, I see. Good for him for being honest, that is <em> totally </em> brutal <em> . </em> Major boner-killer. Props to the guy. And I assume that it’s too late for that, right? You have already got a big ol’ crush on Creepy-o?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro tries to focus more on what he’s saying and less on <em> how </em> he is saying it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah. Something like that. I’m not sure I want to be ‘just friends’. And at this point I’m not sure I <em> can </em> be. And I want to be in his life but he won’t want to be in mine if I can’t get over this.” Voicing it brings a lump to his throat. He swallows and stares at the floor.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re...not usually like this.” Says Kokichi, his voice jilting low.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, I know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ve known you for three years and seen you with more people than I think is either fair or healthy, but you don’t get...<em> caught </em> like this. Does it, I dunno...does it feel different?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro doesn’t look at him, but nods slowly in defeat. He knows what he is confessing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then fuck him.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks up at that, brows knitted together. “Kokichi, I -”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ok, no, I didn’t mean <em> literally</em>, I mean, who cares? This is serious, clearly. You’re just another experiment to him? Nah! That ain’t how this goes. Like it or not, he’s got you good, and both of you have to face that. There is absolutely no point in repressing this shit and pretending everything is ok for his sake because it <em> won’t </em> be. Your friendship will sour, I know it will, and then all the pain was for nothing. It takes two to tango, Rantaro dear, and it sounds like if he was <em> really truly </em> concerned with keeping you at arm’s length he wouldn’t have <em> put his dick in you </em> ...or....let <em> you </em> put your dick in <em> him</em>...or, maybe...”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro gives him a withering look that sends him spinning back onto track.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Whatever. The point is, if being all platonic buddy-buddy was so important to Kiyo, this whole situation never would have come up. I don’t know much about the guy, but he obviously cares for you a lot - coming where you invite him, always watching you from the sidelines, taking you on boring temple trips, tolerating your more <em> exciting </em> friends…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro gives him a fond, exasperated smile and Kokichi winks. “He’ll understand. He’ll help carry this. At least if you both know you can like...I don’t know, work something out as opposed to you just suffering in silence. And who knows? You’re a very pretty, kind and interesting boy, my dear Amami, you might even talk him round!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro snorts. “Yeah, that isn’t likely.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well you never know! He already thinks you’re great, so you just gotta show him that you’ll be great forever. And to him. With him. Whateverrr.” Kokichi twists a lock of hair around his index finger and gives Rantaro a disarmingly adorable smile. He thinks over what he said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So you think I should tell him?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kokichi nods. “You’re gonna at some point. It’ll come out eventually, so you might as well be in control of it, right? Sooner rather than later, and then you can like...move forward?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In amongst the nonsense, the message rings...well, if not <em> true</em>, then convincing. The prospect of telling Korekiyo fills him with dread. He isn’t sure he’s brave enough for this. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> Is it really so bad right now? We’re closer than we’ve ever been and it’s not like it hurts to be around him. I could keep this up </em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Kokichi bribes him away from his desk with bubble tea and he spends the afternoon watching him terrorise the water birds in the park. His mind keeps repeating what Kokichi said, imbuing it with more weight and threat than Kokichi probably ever intended:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> ‘It’ll come out eventually, so you might as well be in control of it…” </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And here it is! Thank you SO much for the reaction to this - it's a little ship and this was born mostly out of my own obsession, and I'm so glad it's managed to bring people joy! I hope this lives up to standards xxx</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He can’t <em> believe </em> he let Korekiyo talk him into this. It serves him right, he supposes. He can’t just have the pretty, exciting, charming parts of being friends with him; he has to take the weird parts too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They’ve been sitting opposite each other on Korekiyo’s floor for almost an hour now, and Rantaro’s neck is stiff from sitting upright with his legs crossed. He has been trying to focus on the words Korekiyo is speaking, the rhythm of his breathing, the pattern of the flickering candle between them, but his mind keeps wandering. He drags his attention back to the present and watches Korekiyo dip his index finger in a bowl of ash and draw a circle around the candle, mumbling to himself in what might be Latin. He places both palms on the floor on either side of the candle and bends his head down. Rantaro is worried that his loose hair might be a bit of a fire hazard.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He waits and watches, keeping his breathing even, admittedly beginning to feel a little strange. Korekiyo falls silent, pauses in the quiet, and then quickly blows out the candle and the room is plunged into darkness. Rantaro remembers his instructions and closes his eyes, black on black, surprising silence on all sides, and lets himself drift. With a general lack of sensory stimulation, he <em> does </em> start feeling something foreign, focusing on breathing and not thinking until he isn’t sure which way is up and whether or not he has his eyes open. He feels something like a cool breeze drift through the inside of his skull, trickling down his neck, like it is actually empty. He sways a little where he sits, the sensation making him woozy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maybe he falls asleep, he isn’t sure. The last concrete thing he remembers is the smell of smoke from the blown-out candle and the thought that he needs to see his sisters before he goes to Africa. He comes to lying on the floor. The room is dimly lit by a couple of lamps. The ritual has been cleared away but there are other candles burning. There’s some classical music playing faintly in the background. He blinks and sits up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo appears beside him, kneeling down to hand him a glass of water. He has his tablet ready.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How do you feel?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Uhhh…” He clears his throat, takes a sip of water. “Fine. That was weird. How long was I out?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh, only about five minutes.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It was weird...I don’t feel like I fainted but it was quicker and stronger than falling asleep. <em>Was </em> I asleep?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo sits beside him, his back against the couch, one leg up and one down in an uncharacteristic display of carelessness. “I don’t know. I was the same. I think it worked, however. I think my question was answered. Did you have any intrusive or surprising thoughts before you went under?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, sort of. About seeing my sisters before I leave for Kenya. I didn’t even know it was bothering me, but I guess it was.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo nods and begins typing rapidly on his tablet. “It reveals subconscious bias. It is a ceremony supposed to draw out your shadow self and reveal small, specific truths. Questions answered, effectively.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Huh.” Says Rantaro, scratching the back of his head and rubbing his eyes. “It did feel like my own thought, but like someone else had found it and drawn it out for me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes, yes, <em> perfect</em>.” Mutters Korekiyo, not looking up from his tablet. “Did you see anything? Smell anything? Did you understand any of what I was saying? Did you hear any voices?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro laughs lightly to himself, fondly, under his breath, and stretches his neck. “I didn’t see anything. I only smelled the smoke from the candle after you blew it out. I heard you talking but couldn’t understand you. What I felt was more like...mild yet sudden disorientation. Like I slipped quickly out of my surroundings, and then there was the thought, and then blackness.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Fascinating.” </em> Korekiyo says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Was it different for you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A little. I saw undulating lines of light, very briefly, and even though I had memorised the words I felt like I was speaking them as though they were in my mother tongue. It is intriguing how ancient rituals like this still ring true today. Those who created them centuries ago must have tapped into some greater truth of experience for them to be so easy to replicate in our entirely new world. I wonder if…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He stops typing and rises to his feet, moving to a bookcase and taking two books from the bottom shelf. Rantaro watches him sit down at his desk and start flipping through them. He goes to get up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That was...uh...<em> fun?</em> Thanks for including me, I’ll leave you to it - seems like you have some reading to do.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo glances up at him. “No, no, don’t go. I’m just checking something, but I’ll be with you shortly.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t wanna get in your way - “</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I won’t hold you here, but I want you to stay.” Says Korekiyo, a throwaway comment he tosses to Rantaro without looking up from his book. Rantaro stumbles under the assault of it. Korekiyo has never said something like that to him before.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh, uh - ok. I’ll just…” Feeling sluggish and warm, happy to sit in silence with Korekiyo, Rantaro uncurls his body and lies back down on the floor, staring at the plaster of Korekiyo’s ceiling. He hears Korekiyo turning pages carefully and scribbling things down on a notepad. He breathes deeply through his nose. He gets lost in his own train of thought about his sisters. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> I could feasibly see four of them before I leave; the four who live within a day’s travel from here. If Natsuki and Marie have spare time I could meet them halfway. It’s been so long since I saw Alice, but Korea is too far out of my route. I should call my parents and talk to the little ones on the weekend. And it’s Ena’s birthday soon, so maybe I could arrange a time to see her and give her a present… </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He starts knotting himself up, thinking about birthdays and gaps in grins and half-eaten sandwiches and texts with too many emojis. He thinks about going further away for longer. He thinks about growing extra arms to hold on to each of them, so when they all run in different directions, he’ll be ripped into twelve. He thinks about how his wanderlust works in opposition to his tendency to love; leaving again and again to avoid being swallowed by the honey in his heart. He floats endlessly on the surface of the sea, unwilling to let the best and brightest of things drag him to the depths.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And then Korekiyo closes his book. And then Korekiyo stands and sighs quietly, happily, and moves over to Rantaro. Without saying anything, he lies beside him, stretching out along his length on the carpet, tilting his head to look at him. His hair spreads out around him, and Rantaro smiles, reaching up to touch the ends that cross the distance between them and brush his shoulder, slipping the tips of his fingers through it. Rantaro feels like they’re liquid, like they’ve melted onto the floor, like they’ll mix and mingle with one another until they’re a different color entirely, a whole new substance, his soft pastels with Korekiyo’s neat darkness. Korekiyo turns on his side to face Rantaro, blinking half-lidded eyes at him affectionately. Rantaro does the same, tucking his arm underneath his head. His touch on Korekiyo’s hair is so light it’s like he’s worried the strands are made of glass and he’ll snap them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What are you thinking about?” Korekiyo asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro’s mind is in two places at once; opposites, really. He is thinking about everything, but the other option is easier, and leaves space between them for Korekiyo, so he says that instead.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nothing.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He says it not because, like with Kokichi, he doesn’t trust Korekiyo with his thoughts, but because he doesn’t want to talk to Korekiyo about his problems. He wants to talk about other things, like religion or ghosts or Korekiyo himself. His worries about small matters seem trivial. He realises he sort of expects Korekiyo to know when there is something seriously wrong, and then there would be no need to ask.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There <em> is </em> nothing wrong. How could anything be wrong when he is lying on Korekiyo’s floor with his fingers in his hair?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They look without talking, breathing each other in. Rantaro watches his own hand move towards Korekiyo’s face, watches him brush his knuckles against the cloth covering his jaw, watches his thumb stroke along his cheek. Korekiyo closes his eyes, his brows furrowing like it’s a strain but he sighs like it’s a relief. He opens them again, gold and penetrating. The last pane of glass between them mercilessly shatters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You are in love with me.” Says Korekiyo.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro swallows but for a long moment doesn’t look away, <em> can’t </em> look away, wouldn’t even if he could, his heart hammering at the recognition of itself, like a caged bird hearing the call of its own kind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No shit.” He says finally, pulling his hand away, rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling again. He can <em> feel </em> Korekiyo’s eyes tracing his profile. He feels like the top layer of his skin has been peeled away. Why did he think he could hide something so huge from someone who <em> studies humans </em> day in and day out?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you upset with me?” Korekiyo asks, small and maybe frightened.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro turns his head to look at him, not bothering to keep the emotions from his face any longer. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you upset with <em> me?</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, of course not. I can’t be.” Says Korekiyo.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, I’m sorry, anyway.” He isn’t going to cry. He <em> isn’t</em>. Rantaro is soft edges and empathy, he cares and he feels and he loves that about himself, but he won’t cry. He won’t lose control.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“To resent the most human of impulses, the most fascinating of phenomena, in the most wonderful of people, would be a crime against my very nature.” Korekiyo says quietly, voice thick.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro has balled his hands into fists by his side. He fixes the ferocity of his gaze on the light fixture, burning with shame, with regret, with unfettered feeling that threatens to drown him, lying in the sharp shards of the boundaries Korekiyo had built and he had destroyed. He never wants to move from this spot on the floor. He wants the ground to swallow him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rantaro…” Korekiyo sounds pitying, <em> truly </em> sorry. He shouldn’t be comforting Rantaro, he should be reprimanding him. <em> Fuck</em>, he thinks, as tears spill down his cheeks at last. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He doesn’t move, but Korekiyo does, sliding nearer to him, propping himself up on his elbow. He half-drapes himself across Rantaro’s chest, his waterfall hair brushing Rantaro’s temple. His bare hand holds Rantaro’s face, his endless eyes a little helpless. He wipes away the tears reverently and leans down to kiss him through his mask; a chaste, tender pressure through a layer of cotton. More tears fill Rantaro’s eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro wants to push him away, to tell him he doesn’t want his pity, to leave with some dignity, but all the fight has drained out of him. He stays on the floor, open and vulnerable, looking up into Korekiyo’s eyes. He believed him when he said he wasn’t upset. That doesn’t mean he’s happy. There is something mournful in the way he pulls his hand away from Rantaro’s cheek. Rantaro feels wrung out, wasted, hollow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Maybe you should go.” Korekiyo says, but his voice is trembling. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The last delicate thread holding Rantaro’s heart together snaps. He holds it close, and then lets it go. He sighs it out and sits up, rubbing his hand over his face and climbing slowly to his feet. Korekiyo stays where he is, watching him, burdened by <em> something </em> Rantaro cannot read because his fucking mouth is covered and he could never understand him in the first place. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Bye, Kiyo.” Rantaro says, like it’s the last time. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He makes it to the door before Kiyo gasps out “No, please...”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He watches him stand, watches him lurch forward, watches him reach for him, feels every bone in his body pull against its sinew with the desire to leave, but his feet won’t move.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> So polite. Ever so polite. He will take up my heart and crush it between his pretty fingers in the most personable of ways… </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We need to...we should talk about this…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro is exhausted, embarrassed, feeling more than a little bit sorry for himself, and he doesn’t want to talk to Korekiyo. He wants to go home and smother himself in his duvet, but the corner of Korekiyo’s voice catches on him, and he pays attention, because he has, over the past few months, subconsciously attuned himself to this particular tone of Korekiyo’s voice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo looks more scared than before. He looks more vulnerable, too. Rantaro wants to apologise, to pepper kisses over his forehead and hold him strong and steady. He doesn’t. He stands with one hand on the door handle, looking expectantly at Korekiyo.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah? What do you wanna say?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I - I think that…” His shoulders are taught, his body tense, he seems to be physically forcing his arms to stay at his side. His eyes flick around the room erratically. It makes the hairs at the back of Rantaro’s neck stand on end.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I…” He shakes like a leaf. Rantaro’s mouth floods with something bitter like guilt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Look, I’m upsetting you, I don’t want to - “</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re not upsetting me. You...you <em> don’t</em>...upset me…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Please. <em> Please. </em>I don’t want to leave it like this, I should have made a plan…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How do you plan for this?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo laughs humorlessly. “I don’t know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m tired, Kiyo. I’m so tired.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Me too.” He whispers. Rantaro barely hears it. He visibly swallows.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you scared?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Liar.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I am...cautious. But I’m determined.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What are you <em> cautious </em> of?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo stands up straighter. He stares and stares. Rantaro takes his hand off the door handle. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ve seen too much.” Korekiyo admits eventually. It comes out slow and quiet. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> I haven’t seen nearly enough</em>, thinks Rantaro.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ve been honest with you. I need you to be honest with me.” He crosses his arms but lets himself look sincere.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks terrifyingly blank, staring at him, still shaking slightly. Rantaro feels a burst of irritation. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Kiyo</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She won’t like it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He swallows, his jaw set. Tendrils of black smoke creep out from the crack under Korekiyo’s bedroom door and wrap around him like tentacles, holding him tight and close and suffocating. Every time Rantaro forgets, he feels like an asshole. Every time Korekiyo is <em> normal </em> it’s a triumph that Rantaro doesn’t even notice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It has nothing to do with her.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo nods. “I know...I - I know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She’s not here. It’s…,” <em> Try not to sound like a dick, </em> “It’s just us. It’s just you and me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo is shaking harder. He isn’t even looking at Rantaro. His brows drop low over frightened eyes and his skin blanches like sand drying. Rantaro clutches onto his composure and tries his best to de-escalate the situation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo, this isn’t good for you, I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to make you upset. I think I should leave, I think I’m making it worse.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He doesn’t want to leave, alarm bells going off in his head telling him Korekiyo <em> isn’t safe here on his own </em> but Rantaro’s presence seems to be sending him spiralling and if giving Korekiyo some time alone to think will alleviate this pounding, ugly atmosphere, like storm clouds gathering, he’ll remove himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I want you to be ok, but me being here is not good for you, and you should have some time to - “</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He has his hand back on the door and something snaps. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Go on then! <em> Leave! </em> You don’t understand anyway. Who do you think you are?! We don’t <em> need </em> you, we don’t need <em> anybody ,</em>get out and leave us alone and don’t come back, just <em> GET OUT!” </em> Korekiyo tears at his mask like he is struggling to breathe, ripping it off to reveal a snarl underneath. He looks nothing like himself. His eyes are suddenly wide and frantic. Rantaro takes his hand off the door again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I...can’t. I’m sorry. I know I’ve made things messy but I can’t leave you like this. I promised to help you. I promised to be there when you needed me. When you gave me your trust, remember?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My <em> trust?! </em> What is ‘trust’?! It is just hollow words. There is nothing in them. Where has my ‘trust’ in you brought us?! You have broken it, Rantaro. I told you what I needed and I asked you for the truth and you lied to me. You <em> kept </em> your feelings from me for your own agenda. You disregarded my wishes when I <em> could not have been clearer!” </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s words sting, lodging themselves under Rantaro’s lungs and pressing against every inhale, but his voice is wrong, his eyes are wild; this isn’t Korekiyo. It is nothing like Korekiyo. It is the bit of him that he’s fighting with every ounce of desperate strength he has left. Rantaro despises it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I am a human being, Kiyo, I can’t always have a firm grip on my feelings. I didn’t mean to hurt you and when I thought I could, I kept quiet. I am sorry if that means I’ve broken your trust, but I’ll mend it. I promise I’ll mend it. But let me help you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How many times; <em>we don’t need your help!! </em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Please, let’s go into the other room. Let’s sit down and calm down. You’re having an episode.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s nails rake down his left forearm, raising the white skin there red and angry. He scratches and scratches at himself while his jaw grinds, tense and feral. He looks like he is both on the brink of bolting and attacking, cornered and confused and furious. Rantaro thinks of this as Korekiyo’s sister, thinks of her malice, her mouse trap mind and fingernails that dig in and <em> hold</em>. He tries to stay calm.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You are <em> vile</em>. You <em> disgust </em> me. You <em> use us and use us and use us. </em> You don’t care about us. You are an outsider and you have come to wrench us apart until we bleed to death. Our parting nearly killed me, do you want that to happen again?! Did you think that <em> sentiment </em> could fix this?! Did you think you could kiss it better?! You have <em> no idea! You don’t understand anything!” </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>His screaming takes the air from his narrow frame, chest heaving with the effort, slumping sideways against the wall but when Rantaro moves reflexively to help he shrinks away. He has scratched enough to draw blood. Rantaro thinks of eyes and sailboats and drowning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m not good at this. I’m not trained for it. I don’t understand what goes on in your head.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ve ruined <em> everything!</em> You don’t want us to be safe, you want us to be <em> yours</em>. Well, we’ll never be yours. We have always only ever had each other. How could we, siblings of starlight, forged in nature’s crucible as imperfect halves of a perfect whole, possibly have use of <em> you?! </em> You’re nothing. A passing fancy. Leave me alone. Leave <em> him alone - leave us alone!” </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo pushes off the wall and stumbles towards Rantaro. Genuine fear sharpens Rantaro’s vision but unlike last time it isn’t for Korekiyo, but for himself. Korekiyo’s hands reach for Rantaro’s face, bloody and vicious. He <em> screams</em>, wails, entirely unlike himself, in utter agony and fury. He is so weak and uncoordinated that Rantaro could knock him to the side, could subdue him by force, could pin him down until he stops thrashing. He could take it like last time, without a fight, without a reaction, and let all of this foul, thick, putrid anger leak out until there is only a shell left for him to clean out in the aftermath. He doesn’t have the training or the knowledge or the experience for this. She is right. He doesn’t understand anything.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He bats away Korekiyo’s clawing hands with relative ease and lets the momentum carry Korekiyo into his body. His back thuds against the door with the impact, the handle digging into his hip, and Korekiyo struggles to push himself upright. Rantaro winds his arms around Korekiyo’s shoulders and pulls him against his chest, cradling his chin in the curve of his neck, holding him there gently but firmly with a grip around his waist and another across his shoulder blades. He stands, embracing Korekiyo, as he hisses and curses and struggles to free himself. Rantaro is bulkier than Korekiyo, and in this state he is no match for him. He thinks it might be terrifying for Korekiyo to be trapped against another’s body against his will, but Rantaro is out of ideas, and he needs to immobilise him before he does some damage.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s shouts wither to venomous mutterings and his thrashing turns to pushing at Rantaro’s chest or flanks or the door behind them. Rantaro wonders at how he can hold Korekiyo completely without much effort; the whole, huge essence of him, the endless branching corridors of ideas, can fit simply and neatly within the circle of his arms. Korekiyo’s infuriated hisses become anguished sobs, like last time, and he goes limp, giving in, falling into Rantaro’s hold like he needs it to stand. Rantaro realises a few seconds later that he’s crying too. The gates of his grief groan, his useless, stupid, determined heart filling and spilling and not even having the bitterness to resent it, and eventually it breaks. He weeps, heavy and hard, pressing his face into Korekiyo’s shoulder, his dark hair against his soaked eyelashes, the lovely, terrible smell of him everywhere, and he isn’t restraining him anymore, but hugging him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I love you...<em>I love you… </em>” He whispers, his grip tightening because he’s worried Korekiyo will slip away from him like smoke and he’ll be left again in the aching loneliness that gapes open when he thinks about life without him. Korekiyo trembles from his own sobs, one hand hanging by his side, one hesitantly fluttering to Rantaro’s shoulder as his tears wet his shirt. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I love you so much it hurts...I’m so sorry, Kiyo…” He mumbles into his hair, screwing his eyes shut, gasping for breath through his sobs, feeling pathetic and euphoric, like standing on the edge of a cliff and staring into the sun. “I promise to help. However I can. I’ll do anything to protect you, I swear it. I trust you and I will try to understand and I forgive you and I’m sorry and <em> I love you</em>…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s breath shakes by his ear as he presses his face into Rantaro’s neck, his cheeks and lips damp against the sensitive skin there. Rantaro cradles him, his chest full, his heart empty, and he can’t stop crying now he’s started. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know loving you won’t fix you, but I’ll help you if you let me. And I’ll wait for you afterwards. And I’ll love you anyway.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They stand, holding each other, crying quietly, for what feels like hours but could realistically only be a few minutes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“...<em>Why? </em>” Korekiyo says eventually, voice hoarse and unstable, and it sounds intended for himself more than Rantaro. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>I don’t - </em> “ He starts, then breaks off. He lifts his head to look at Rantaro. He looks tired, wrecked, the uncanny sight of his parted lips like a wound, but his eyes glitter with <em> something</em>. Whatever he finds in Rantaro’s expression grounds him enough to stand steady, moving out of the embrace slightly. He speaks, and although his voice is quiet, it shakes less.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re going to stay, aren’t you?” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s accusatory, like he’s finally conceding to something beyond his control. Rantaro wipes at his face, thinking that he must look a state.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you want me to?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo licks his lips. There is a trace of his usual self-control and restraint in his damp, flushed face. He sighs, long and heavy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s good enough for Rantaro. He pushes off the door and moves away from Korekiyo, bending down to pick up his mask from the floor and hand it back to him. Korekiyo looks at it, crumpled and small, in Rantaro’s outstretched hand. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He reaches out with steady fingers and takes it from him. He gives it barely a second glance and slides it into his pocket.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Stay.” He says evenly. There is a slow blooming of his usual assuredness under his skin, his commanding confidence, his unusual charisma, and Rantaro watches the ‘normal’ Korekiyo come to life in front of him, little by little, held down somewhat by his obvious exhaustion. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Okay.” Rantaro says back, feeling a matching numbness that often follows crying out all of the stuff you’ve been trying to repress.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s in daze, following Korekiyo out of the hallway, away from the exit and towards the heart of the place. He doesn’t realise he’s taking him to his bedroom until the door shuts behind him and Korekiyo switches on the bedside lamp. Rantaro looks at the clock: 11 PM: later than he thought. The room still smells faintly of paint, but Rantaro can’t see any eyes. Korekiyo has even tacked up some photos. There is one of him and Gonta on a train, several of people Rantaro doesn’t know, several more of beautiful landscapes, buildings or trees, a copy of the photo of them together in front of the waterfall and one that Rantaro didn’t even know Korekiyo had taken, of him, laughing with his head thrown back and his eyes shut, on a hill somewhere. There is sunlight tangled in his green hair and the bridge of his nose is sunburnt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo leaves him to look and begins undressing. Rantaro’s pulse spikes traitorously until he sees him slipping into pyjamas. He doesn’t even look at Rantaro as he heads into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. Rantaro collapses onto the bed, burying his face in his hands and sighing the frustration out. He tugs on his hair and wipes away the last of the tears. He feels drained, wrung out like a dishcloth. He wants to go to sleep. He looks around the intimate, clean space of Korekiyo’s room and feels his heart calm despite everything. This evening could have gone better, but it could have gone a lot worse.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo comes back with a fresh, clean face and smelling of mint, but he still looks a little numb. The scratches he made on his forearm have been cleaned and no longer bleed. He hands Rantaro a towel, who takes that as his cue to use the bathroom. He takes a quick, hot shower and rubs toothpaste over his teeth to clean them as best as he can. When he re-enters the bedroom, Korekiyo is sitting at his vanity, finishing brushing his hair. He drags the comb through it a few more times until it falls, obedient and glossy, down to his waist. He looks at Rantaro and Rantaro looks back. The atmosphere is of...quiet defeat. Korekiyo stands and moves over to the bed, lifting the covers and sliding underneath as if Rantaro isn’t there. Rantaro stands still for a few moments; steeling himself or making sure he isn’t dreaming or deciding whether or not to run, he isn’t sure. Then he sighs and slips out of his jeans and his shirt. If Korekiyo didn't want him in only his underwear, he should have given him some pyjamas. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s sheets are cold. Rantaro lies on his back right at the edge, staring at the ceiling, a hand under his head in a pantomime of ease. Korekiyo lies on his side and Rantaro can feel him staring at him, like needles piercing his skin. In all the time he’s known him, he would never have expected to spend the night in Korekiyo’s bed, and if he’d ever allowed himself to imagine it, it would have been under much more exciting, sensual circumstances. As it happens, he feels sleep tugging intently at his eyelids, his body sinking into the mattress despite how on edge he feels. The hollow space in his chest left by the flood of emotions earlier collapses in on itself, leaving him confused and jaded and hanging in the emptiness between. He closes his eyes. He hears Korekiyo turn off the lamp and everything goes dark.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He thinks maybe he sleeps for a bit, but he isn’t sure. He stirs, swimming to the surface a while later to fingertips against his arm. He keeps his eyes closed as he shifts onto his side, turning into the touch. The bed is warmer now. He feels Korekiyo closer and sighs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The fingers become a hand, wrapping around Rantaro’s forearm where it rests by his face on the pillow, a thumb brushing intently over the pulse at the inside of his wrist. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you.” Says Korekiyo. His voice is steady and full. He hasn’t been asleep. Rantaro nuzzles into a pillow that smells like him and hums softly, nodding, not ready to open his eyes and break the spell he’s under. He moves his arm so Korekiyo’s grip slides up to his palm, and he knots their fingers together. It is still, after everything, <em> thrilling </em> to touch him. His bare skin is still a soft shock in the dark.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Intimacy is a delicate, volatile thing, and Rantaro knows not to be crass or careless with it. There was curiosity and then amity and then passion and now...things simmer to intimacy, warm and low and fragile in Rantaro’s stomach, in the tips of his toes and the follicles of his hair. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He feels Korekiyo move closer and brush the hair from his brow. He keeps his eyes closed as nervous energy cartwheels down his spine, fizzing in his lower stomach, waking his body up. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” whispers Korekiyo, close enough that Rantaro feels the words dust across his lips. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He blinks his eyes open slowly. They forgot to draw the curtains. Korekiyo stares back at him, inches away, monochrome in the moonlight. With his mouth uncovered and his hair loose across the pillow, he looks like a mermaid. Rantaro stares at him over their linked hands, without the energy to put any kind of filter over his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He thinks about what he said about his sisters, about loving someone in their entirety, without conditions or clauses. Korekiyo doesn’t need to apologise, but the fact that he has still does something to soothe the sting under Rantaro’s ribs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo untangles his fingers from Rantaro’s and tucks them against his cheek, his thumb brushing against the place the skin creases when Rantaro smiles. He moves closer, curving their bodies together, and Rantaro tilts his face into the touch like an invitation. Korekiyo gives him ample time to move away; too much time - Rantaro is impatient - but he stays there in the warmth between Korekiyo’s sheets, his hand on his cheek, until he feels his lips. He gets a sort of satisfaction from making Korekiyo work for it, stretching out to meet him, coaxing his mouth open, working their tongues together. The first time Rantaro felt packed too tight. This time he feels stretched too thin. After baring himself, he needs reassurance.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo is good at kissing. It makes Rantaro’s stomach flood with warmth. He feels his nerve endings jolt and hum and his heart pick up familiar speed. The kiss is slow and sensual, like an intimate conversation, less heat and frenzy than the last, and Rantaro gets lost in it. He wonders if this is taking advantage of his best friend’s compromised emotional state, but Korekiyo presses forward further, slots their bodies closer together, slides his leg between Rantaro’s thighs and wraps a hand around his neck and Rantaro realises they both <em> need this</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They kiss for what feels like hours, slow and burning, and without the pressure of a party and the frantic worry that the situation might suddenly change. Rantaro learns the shape of his lips, the flick of his tongue, the small sound he makes when Rantaro <em> bites</em>. The heat is less fire and more lava, moving slowly, perfectly, <em> destructively </em> to its natural end. He’s dizzy with it, disorientated, somewhere between dreaming and determined. He spreads his hand against the small of Korekiyo’s back, pulls him closer, holds him steady. It feels very natural to touch him like this, the long hair under his fingertips, the smell of incense and green tea, the long limbs wrapped around him; like they’ve been doing this the whole time. Which, of course, they haven’t. It excites him, still; the novelty of it. Despite how content he feels, there is a prickling of shock on his scalp and along his spine: <em> it’s Kiyo, I’m kissing Kiyo - Kiyo, with his supernatural beauty and brilliant brain. It’s his lips on mine and his skin burning under my fingertips. It is Kiyo’s secret bedroom that I’m currently losing my mind in. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>He is...regrettably hard - the kissing feels sanctifying and important, and he sort of wishes his body would understand the <em> emotional </em> importance of the act without getting aroused in such an obvious, primitive way. Korekiyo doesn’t seem to mind. He starts moving his hips a little, pressing their bodies together. It makes Rantaro sigh. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He thinks about last time - the <em> first </em> time - how much initiative Korekiyo had taken, how much he’d been in control. Is that what he wants? Because Rantaro would willingly give it. He doesn’t know how his brain works, and trusts him to draw the line, but he wants to show Korekiyo that he’ll take him, all of him, if he lets him. He wants to make him feel even a fraction of what he made Rantaro feel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you ok?” He whispers against Korekiyo’s lips.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He nods, bumping their noses together, his hands in the hair behind Rantaro’s ear and his thumb brushing against his temple. He presses their hips together in encouragement. Rantaro feels his blood fizz against his pulse points.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He pushes Korekiyo’s shoulder until he has him on his back, breaking away to kiss his collarbone where his pyjama shirt gapes. He slots their legs together, leaning on one elbow so he doesn’t crush him, and gently, slowly, <em> touches</em>: the notches of his ribcage, the dip of his waist and the soft, hot skin beneath his navel. When he runs the tip of his finger under the waistband of his pants, he feels Korekiyo’s stomach muscles jump.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo is flushed and panting. His lips are red in the darkness. Rantaro feels his trademark guilt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you want this? Or do you just want to feel something?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I want to feel <em> you</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He drops his forehead against Korekiyo’s, breathing deeply, his touch rippling against his stomach, and going no further. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Kiyo…</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know we should talk. I <em> know </em> I’ve treated you terribly. You deserve...you deserve <em> so much.</em>..I just can’t believe…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His hands in Rantaro’s hair tighten, tugging at the roots. Rantaro’s body hums. He tries to commit everything to memory, tries to put enough space between them to think. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What can’t you believe?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That you’d still want me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He presses a tender kiss to the column of his throat. He feels Korekiyo’s hands trace his spine. He feels like they’re in a bubble; surrounded, compressed, protected.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do <em>you</em> want <em>me</em>? Now you know?” Rantaro asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We wouldn’t have had a problem if I didn’t.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His breathing sounds too loud in the room. Korekiyo’s body undulates under him, long and smooth, like a river.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Can you consent, Kiyo?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I <em> do </em> consent.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Can </em> you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She got angry, as I thought she would.” Korekiyo tilts his head back. Rantaro bites at his jaw, pressing himself closer. “She couldn’t bear it. I feel guilty, you see. I still feel like she’s watching me. She knows. She resents me. She hates how I watch you, how I think of you, how I <em>adore</em> you. You live in my head with her.” His voice breaks into a groan as Rantaro kisses his pulse point, <em> hard</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll wait her out. I’m more patient than her. And I care about you more.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It might take years…” He breathes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t care.” He kisses Korekiyo’s sternum.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then you’ll win…” Korekiyo sounds raw, ragged, borderline desperate. It makes Rantaro’s head swim. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s starlight on his skin where Rantaro puts his mouth, and Korekiyo ‘<em>adores’ </em> him, apparently. He’s in a trance, simmering in heat, and Korekiyo gets tired of waiting and wraps his fingers round Rantaro’s wrist. Rantaro nudges down the waistband of his pyjamas. Korekiyo’s fingers slide into his hair as Rantaro tastes his pulse. He is hard and heavy in Rantaro’s hand. He is breathless and adoring in his ear. He is everywhere, <em>everything</em>, and he meets Rantaro in the middle, craning up to kiss him, bowing his body upwards, and it's almost too much to <em>bear</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro floats, atop the surface instead of trapped under it. If the back of his neck prickles with the gaze of the walls, he ignores it in favor of the deep breathing, soft sounds, smooth skin beneath him. The darkness closes in and envelopes them. The night stretches endless and lucid in front of him; his own breathless euphoria blending with Korekiyo's beautiful, broken sounds to make a tapestry; unravelling at the edges but spreading out intricately into the unknown future.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>000</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Don’t <em> leave </em> me here with these animals!” Kokichi wails, flinging his arms around Rantaro as he attempts to get to the front door.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll bring you back a lion, how’s that?” Rantaro detangles himself and slings the strap of his backpack over one shoulder.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ok, I forgive you!” He says, all sudden sunny smiles. Kaito drags him away from Rantaro by the scruff of his neck.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“See you in three months, bro!” Kaito says, Shuichi under one arm, Kokichi under the other. “You and Kiyo look after each other, alright? No malaria or getting trafficked or anything.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro rolls his eyes. “That’s a bit of a reductive view of Kenya. Don't worry, I’ve been before.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ok, then no getting eaten by lions!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thanks, I’ll try not to. And don’t you guys kill each other while I’m gone. I’ll be back in three months so please keep the place clean. And I <em> don’t </em> want to find a stranger in my bedroom when I get back.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shuichi gives him a hug and Kaito slaps him on the back. Kokichi tries to kiss him, like a sailor’s wife waving off her beloved, but Rantaro just laughs pushes him off. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Send us lots of pictures!” Keebo shouts from the doorstep as Rantaro puts his suitcase in the trunk of the taxi. Kokichi is fake crying. Shuichi and Kaito wave at him, smiling. He sighs heavily after he shuts the door and the car pulls away from the curb.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He checks his backpack: passport, plane tickets, pills, hand sanitiser, papers for immigration, instructions and maps. Everything is there. He watches the city go by, headphones in, feeling the satisfying shimmer of excitement and trepidation building at the base of his spine. He puts his phone onto battery-saving mode and lets the sunlight cut across his face through the gaps between buildings. The morning is cold but fiercely bright. The journey is twenty minutes, because of the traffic.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s buzzed into the building and takes the steps up to the apartment two at a time despite the combined weight of his suitcase and backpack. Korekiyo opens the door, looking a little flustered, and hurries him in so he can shut it behind them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good morning,” He says distractedly, pulling his mask down for a moment so he can press a kiss to Rantaro’s lips, “Since you’re here exactly on time you can help me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Having trouble packing, are you? Can’t say I’m surprised.” Says Rantaro, dropping his luggage by the door and looking in mild alarm at the mess spread across the living room floor. “But...<em>this </em> is a bit much, Kiyo.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know.” Korekiyo looks mildly frustrated, distressed. It’s endearing. Rantaro smiles as he huffs at him. “I can’t take all of this but I don’t know what to leave behind.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s cool, I’ll help. And I’ll be brutal.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo has already packed his clothes and essentials. It’s the books and research materials that catch him now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro <em> is </em> brutal. They kneel on the carpet, Korekiyo holding up an object and Rantaro deciding whether it is essential or not. Mostly, it is <em> not</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s only three months, Kiyo, you won’t have time to learn Spanish.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I <em> might</em>. What if I can’t sleep and need some stimulation.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Wake me up then.” Rantaro says. Korekiyo rolls his eyes good-naturedly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Alright. No Spanish. But I really should take the encyclopedia. I’ll surely need it if I want to note any observations at all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Fine, the encyclopedia can stay, but you <em> do not need </em> three separate decks of tarot cards. Or this...what <em> is </em> this?? Is this <em> cast iron</em>?!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s a small bowl, sort of like a cauldron, and very heavy. Korekiyo swipes it from his grasp.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Just in case - “</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Kiyo.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo sighs and drops it behind him. “Ok. I’ll get rid of all of my tools. They’ll push me over the weight limit.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro smiles. “Good. I figured maybe if we wanted to take makeup we should take one bag between us to save space. It’s not like we’ll have much cause to wear it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good idea.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro continues to help him pack. When they have eventually wrangled all of Korekiyo’s things into two bags, Rantaro collapses on the couch, exhausted.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo emerges from the kitchen with an iced tea and hands it to him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have booked the car to the airport. It’ll be here in an hour.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro checks the clock on his phone. “We’ll have plenty of time, then. No need to stress.” The tea is refreshing and sweet. Korekiyo takes off his mask to drink his. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“When we are there, we will have to be very careful.” Korekiyo says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro wants to say <em> not you too</em>, but his housemates were worried about the Africa they knew from TV. He knows that what Korekiyo is referring to is a much more immediate and real danger.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah. It’ll be difficult; remembering that we’re just friends, acting like it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We did it for three years, surely it can’t be that hard to go back.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo gives him a look that is difficult to decipher. He is lost somewhere behind his irises - thinking things over, perhaps. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It will be hard to un-learn what we have become in the last few weeks.” Korekiyo says finally. He finishes his drink and Rantaro watches his throat move as he swallows.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, it will be. But we don’t want to get arrested.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Quite.” Korekiyo’s brow quirks with ironic amusement. Rantaro considers what it will be like to return to the way it was; constantly restraining himself from touching him. As an exercise in self-control, it might be valuable. It’s not like they don’t have other reasons to spend time together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo looks at him for a moment longer and then sighs, standing up again, towering over him and offering a hand. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well then, we best make the most of an hour.” He sighs, says it like it’s a chore, with a hint of teasing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rantaro allows himself to be pulled to his feet and into a kiss. The slightest touch has his pulse spiking and his skin breaking out in goosebumps. He laughs against Korekiyo’s lips.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is this a way of distracting me so you can sneak the candlestick back into your luggage?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Maybe…” Korekiyo says, low and simmering. It teases against his skin, stirring his blood. Rantaro touches a hand to Korekiyo's stomach, bared by the crop top he’s wearing. He feels it concave under his palm with his inhale. He drops it to his belt buckle and <em>tugs</em>...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo’s eyes are affectionate; clear and focused at the prospect of the coming adventure. Rantaro has never been a fan of staying still, of constants and predictability, but this look in Korekiyo’s eyes, close to his own, his lips pulling into a small smile; <em> this </em> he could get used to.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Korekiyo reads his expression and pulls him by his hands into his bedroom. Rantaro goes willingly, eagerly, with questions on his tongue and a solid, warm weight in his heart that he knows to be love.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He shuts the door behind them.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks again, friends! I am so happy that I posted this and saw it through to the end. Pay attention to the people around you xxx</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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